Dumbass Quote of the Day
Could someone please remind me why people take Geraldo Rivera seriously? The man is little more than a carnival barker, a two-bit huckster masquerading as a journalist. And now, even after “apologizing” for blaming the Trayvon Martin killing on his wearing a hoodie, he’s once again defending that idiocy:
was right about the hoodie wasn’t I? I hate to brag, but I got criticized by every pundit in America when I said Trayvon Martin would be alive today but for the fact that he was wearing thug wear – he was wearing the hoodie. Turns out now that we look at George Zimmerman’s interviews with the police; he didn’t profile Trayvon Martin because he was black, he profiled him because he was wearing a hoodie.
Riiight. Because if it had been a white kid wearing a hoodie from the university he went to — that’s pretty much the standard uniform on any college campus you visit — he would have been just as concerned about the “thug wear,” amirite?
lofgren:
July 18th, 2012 at 11:44 am
Hoodies are and will probably be for the foreseeable future a preferred gear for people up to no good, because they can be used to help hide your face or shed to change your appearance entirely. For the exact same reason, they are also a preferred gear for people out walking to the convenience store on a cool rainy night.
dingojack:
July 18th, 2012 at 11:46 am
Hey Geraldo, nice hoodie dude!
Guess you deserve to be a fashion victim too, right, Geraldo?
Dingo
busterggi:
July 18th, 2012 at 11:48 am
Hoodies are thug wear?
I was unaware that Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Old Navy, Kohls, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc all had thugwear departments.
matty1:
July 18th, 2012 at 11:50 am
@1 I must be misreading you but that looks like you are saying people wear hoodies on a cold rainy night for the exact same reason as those up to no good – to hide their faces. That doesn’t sound right.
Michael Heath:
July 18th, 2012 at 11:52 am
I’ve long worn hoodies during non-business hours and given that I look like a standard-issue Republican businessman, find it ironic when people go off on this style.
Ed writes:
He now gets paid to be the liberal strawman on Fox News, a perfect foil for Bill O’Reilly. “Perfect” if one’s objective is to keep the ratings going by misinforming and riling up one’s viewers.
EdgyB:
July 18th, 2012 at 11:54 am
Just look at that mustache of his! How couldn’t you take it seriously?!?
Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation:
July 18th, 2012 at 11:55 am
18 July 2012 at 10:53 am
I even heard thugs wear jeans. So shooting anybody wearing jeans is just self-defence? Amirite?
reverendrodney:
July 18th, 2012 at 11:55 am
Wasn’t Geraldo at one time Jerry Rivers, but changed the name to seem more exotic, or was it Geraldo Rivera in the first place, changed to Jerry Rivers to seem more something else, then back to Geraldo again? All of which means the guy is a total phony.
Carnival barker is the perfect description.
democommie:
July 18th, 2012 at 11:59 am
“Could someone please remind me why people take Geraldo Rivera seriously?”
Well, Ed, if you filter out the whackaloon fucknutz, that demographic shrinks to, um, nobody.
I’m sorry did I misunderestimate Jerry Rivers? Was he saying hat hoodz wear hoodiez or that they’re ON hoodiez?
http://www.spreadshirt.com/george-w-bush-waving-and-smiling-hoodie-C3376A7938301
nathanielfrein:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
@4 Matty1
No, I don’t think you’re misreading, and I don’t think there’s a problem with what he’s saying.
On a cool, rainy night you want to cover your head and face as much as you can from the rain. It’s the same reason you’d wear a scarf.
So while the two people have the same goal (hiding their face) the intent and reasoning behind doing so are completely different.
Also doesn’t change the fact that hoodies are MASSIVELY popular gear, especially among the high-school and college aged crowd (and, honestly, the blue collar crowd). Using it as an excuse for “profiling” is downright ridiculous.
slc1:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:04 pm
Re reverendrodney @ #8
As I understand it, his given name is Gerald Rivers. He assumed the name Geraldo Rivera to take advantage of his mother’s Hispanic background.
erichoug:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:05 pm
OK, I have been working on something on Trayvon and I want to run it by a sceptical audience, keep in mind that I absolutely believe that Zimmerman is guilty of murder in this case and that the stand your ground law actually applies to Trayvon and not to Zimmerman. So, here goes:
Trayvon Martin takes off running to get away from Zimmerman. He is cutting through the neighborhood but keeps seeing him behind him. At some point Trayvon decides that he isn’t going to get away from him and his best bet is to stand his ground, so he waits around a corner for Zimmerman. When Zimmerman rounds the corner, Trayvon blindsides him. In the ensuing fight, Trayvon gets the upper hand but Zimmerman manages to get his gun out and shoot him.
Now, my argument would be that the whole attack actually began as soon as Zimmerman started chasing him. That being the case, I don’t see how he can claim any sort of defense. If you randomly attack someone on the street and they end up kicking your ass, you don’t get to pull out a gun, shoot them and then claim self defense.
What do y’all think.
Abby Normal:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:05 pm
I’m not sure what Geraldo said before could really be categorized as an appology.
I apologize to anyone offended by what one prominent black conservative called my ‘very practical and potentially life-saving campaign urging black and Hispanic parents not to let their children go around wearing hoodies.’
Sure, it’s got the word apologize in it. But the message is clear, “Look, that black guy thinks I’m right. So what I said is okay.”
slc1:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Gerald Rivers’ career was heading down the toilet back in 1994 when it was rescued by O. J. Simpson. He was hired by MSNBC to provide commentary on the Simpson trial because he has a law degree and once worked in a prosecutor’s office.
zentrout:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_Al_Capone%27s_Vaults
Are we finished here then?
Abby Normal:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Sorry, the middle part of my comment @13 was quoting Rivera.
d cwilson:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Geraldo Rivera is Exhibit A in the case that Fox is where you go when no other “news” organizations would hire you anymore.
slc1:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Re erichong @ #12
That is close to what Zimmerman says occurred, except that he claims that he had broken off his pursuit of Martin and had started back to his vehicle. He then claims that Martin confronted him in which an altercation ensued in which Zimmerman was getting the worst of it. He claims that Martin was reaching for his, Zimmerman’s, gun and that he pulled it out and shot Martin in self defense.
It should be noted that the police officer who was in charge of the crime scene wanted to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter but was overruled by the district attorney.
IMHO, the police officer was right and the current charge of 2nd degree murder is overcharging with the intent of forcing a plea bargain to manslaughter.
Thus far, information has been revealed indicating that Zimmerman is less then a solid citizen, although it’s not clear that the information is relevant to the current case.
The bottom line here is that there would have been no trouble here if Zimmerman had not been in possession of a gun as it is extremely doubtful that he would have disregarded the order from the dispatcher to not attempt to follow Martin. Generally, in these neighborhood watch situations, the watchers are not supposed to be armed.
DaveL:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Because the reasons people articulate are always the real reasons for their beliefs or behaviour. Also, birthers totally threw the same hissy fit over Ronald Reagan’s birth certificate, and FOX routinely refers to the wives of presidential candidates of any race as their “baby momma.”
beezlebubby:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:32 pm
@Erichoug:
That has been my reading of this since I first heard about it. You can bet your sweet bippy that if Trayvon seriously injured or killed Zimmy, he would have been immediately charged with a capitol crime. I’ve had a long-standing plan in place for being harassed by a stranger feigning authority (I encountered it once before, to my detriment). If someone approaches me, insists that I comply with some demand(like being detained), based on their authority, and then fail to provide any evidence for said authority, I will promptly throat-punch them without further discussion or warning. I know that sounds pretty terrible, but I’m forever through being screwed with.
Eric:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Well, there’s your problem right there. You’re going into this with preconceived notion; in other words, your argument fails in that you’re already biased right from the start.
lofgren:
July 18th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Of course it’s right. The exact same factors that makes them useful for people who are up to no good also make them useful for protecting you from the cold and wet. See also: ski masks, trenchcoats.
I thought there was some evidence that Martin tried to talk to Zimmerman first, asking him what’s his problem and telling him to back off. I don’t trust Zimmerman so we’ll probably never know who threw the first punch, but could you really blame Martin if he did? Shady-ass guy cruising slowly and staring at him. I would be nervous and I’m a middle age white guy. Going somewhere with people would have been the best course for Trayvon, but kicking the guy in the nuts probably seemed like a pretty attractive alternative at the time.
lofgren:
July 18th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
That’s not how an argument works. Arguments succeed or fail based on their merits, not the arguer’s bias. Bias can be a source of a bad argument’s flaws, but believing that Zimmerman is guilty does not mean that erichoug’s argument that shadowing Trayvon would have presented a sufficient perceived threat that Martin was justified in defending himself is automatically false. Saying that bias alone invalidates an argument is just a version of that new-agey “all perspectives are valid” crap, except reversed so all perspectives are invalid.
I think regardless of whether you believe that Zimmerman is guilty, most people would probably agree that a person should have the right to confront somebody who is stalking them without worrying about getting shot, and that stalking somebody in the first place constitutes a pretty threatening act.
eric:
July 18th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
erighoug @12:
I very much hope that some sanity comes into it and FL courts will rule in this way.
However, I suspect that the lesson bigots will take from this case is that you’d better just shoot first, and not bother to chase anyone down. Just immediately use lethal force the moment you are in close contact with someone you don’t like. Because ‘just shooting them’ appears to be legal under the stand your ground law, but if you do something non-lethal, and they start running away, and then you shoot them, you lose your self-defense defense.
lofgren:
July 18th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Reminds me of the persistent (and probably false, IANAL, etc.) rumor that in New Hampshire it is legal to shoot anybody in your own home, since permission to enter can be revoked at-will and trespassers can be legally shot without any other provocation.
yoav:
July 18th, 2012 at 2:20 pm
I don’t know all the details so I’m not going to try and make claims as to what exactly happened that night but saying that Treyvon “asked for it” by wearing a hoodie is identical to the (unfortunately still too common) claim made by rape apologists about how if only the victim didn’t dress in a certain way, didn’t dance in a certain way, never left the house not wearing a burka, she wouldn’t have been raped.
lorn:
July 18th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
Funny how double standards work.
Back in the late 60s, thinking back that far hurts my head and makes me feel old, all the kids in my lower-middle class neighborhood wore hoodies, bluejeans, and Converse All-Stars. I don’t remember calling them hoodies. We wore them because our mothers bought them. She liked them because they were cheap, wore well, and were washable. Most started a dark blue because that color didn’t show stains. Having a hood and warm kangaroo pocket/s (zip versus pullover) also meant your kid didn’t need hats or gloves that would get lost in under a week. When your family budgeted to the last dollar every week hoodies were a way to make those dollars go a little farther.
Point there being that hoodies weren’t associated with thugs so much as working-class people who wanted inexpensive coats. Woolworth had them on sale for $5 as I remember it. Even today a lot of blue collar workers favor hoodies because they are cheap enough to be expendable.
Cheap but effective is why the military wore them over sweatpants for exercise in boot camp. As does the local police academy. I guess that little silkscreen logo on the left breast, and the smiling white face, magically changes it from thug-culture fashion wear to respectable public service clothing.
In NOLA after Katrina white people pulling things out of shops were said to be ‘providing for their families’ while dark skinned people were ‘looting’. Of course anyone who known anything about retail, and insurance, knew the entire contents of the flooded stores were a write off. For public heath and insurance reasons no retailer will resell goods from a flooded store. What both groups were doing was salvage, recycling and reuse.
Racism is part of it but it isn’t just racism. People have been reading, and reading themselves into, stories about rampaging poor people for forty years now. In the antebellum south it was fear of a slave rebellion. Zimmerman had no doubt spent a lot of time inculcating himself with this story line. And when he read it he always pictured himself as a the hero who stops the ravening hordes. The black face and hoodie were just props in the play. As was they symbol of his manly and forthright resistance, the gun.
This is just one of the nuggets in the American dinner-theater of mythology repertoire. There are also the favorites of “American Exceptionalism -v- European Backwardness” and “Tales and Ways of Rugged Individualist on the Boundless Frontier”. These short plays get projected over and over on the inside of American skulls and at any given time you may be handed a script and told to play the part. Trayvon didn’t know his part. He was supposed to flee like the cur his part is written as so that Zimmerman could get that warm feeling of having been manly defender of the right. Unfortunately in the American real-life playhouse there isn’t a proctor to get the players on script by feeding them their lines, the gun isn’t loaded with blanks, and the blood is quite real.
America needs therapy so that it can stop reliving its never was glory days and get on with real life.
lofgren:
July 18th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
There’s a difference?
oranje:
July 18th, 2012 at 3:02 pm
A number of years ago, I went with a group of friends to some suburban bar/lounge type place. I had on my rock climbing hooded sweatshirt, the one I wear belaying and is good in cool weather. They wouldn’t let me in due to my “gang affiliation” clothing. I’m close to the most unintimidating looking person you can meet, so I asked the bouncer if he was joking. I just got the bouncer stare. I’m guessing he was given a list of things that management prohibited and had to think really hard to memorize it.
So I had to put it back in the car and be a bit cold. Fine. We walk in, and there’s a couple on the dancefloor, she wearing a sports bra as a top, he wearing matching rainbow NASCAR jacket and hat. Charming. Guess that’s not gang clothing.
The moral of the story? If you’re judging based on a piece of clothing, you’re a bloody moron. And if you believe that the Martin killing was solely because of a piece of clothing, you’re a Geraldo-level bloody moron. I look forward to that gasbag proving causation, that it was a piece of clothing and not racial stereotypes that precipitated events.
Doesn’t Al Capone have another unopened glovebox he could be bothering?
lofgren:
July 18th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
Usually if a bouncer tells you that you are wearing gang colors and you are not aware of it, you’re best option is to listen up and take them off. He may have saved you from a beatdown.
Obviously I can’t speak to all bars, but in many cases bars that ban gang clothing do so because they know that there are gangs around and they are trying to remain a neutral space. They’re not looking to turn away gang members, they are looking to keep their symbols and insignia out of the bar so that it can stay relatively safe. The bouncer doesn’t care whether you actually in a gang or not – but then the guys who beat the crap out of you for wearing colors in a neutral space might not care either. He wasn’t judging you (and he doesn’t give a shit how trashy you look). He was just trying to protect his business by making it a little bit more safe.
DaveL:
July 18th, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Well, there was always the alternative script where Martin was supposed to attack Zimmerman unprovoked and without regard for his own safety, like a rabid animal.
The best part of which is it’s much easier to shoot someone and claim they attacked you for no reason than it is to shoot someone and claim they ran off.
lofgren:
July 18th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
Also, would you really prefer that the bouncer use his own biases to determine who is in a gang, rather than actual gang insignias? Because that is exactly the kind of double standard that Ed is accusing Zimmerman of having. The bouncer’s job is not to restrict the clothing of only those individuals he personally suspects of being gang members due to his own preconceived notions, it’s to keep gang colors out of the bar, full stop. Also, you wouldn’t be the first scrawny gang member.
matty1:
July 18th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
OK, now I’m the one confusing people – I read “hide your face” as “obscure your face from the view of other people”, when you wear a hood against the rain the reason is not to obscure other peoples view it’s to keep the rain off. I don’t regard covering against rain as hiding and would say that the reason a.k.a motives are different in the two cases.
In any event I do understand that keeping the rain off is a common and understandable reason to wear a hoodie.
Eric:
July 18th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
Ummm, the poster stated right at the very beginning that he was biased as to the outcome:
A lawyer for either side presents their evidence to the court regardless of their personal feelings about it. They don’t state: “Your honor, I think my client’s guilty, but here’s why the law says he isn’t”.
The law demands as dispassionate a presentation as possible. Any other use would be instantly objected to by opposing counsel as bias.
Asking a skeptical audience of a blog works in much the same way.
zmidponk:
July 18th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
erichoug #12:
Well, the conclusion I came to was reasonably close, but the details picked up from the phone call between Trayvon Martin and his girlfriend make me think your scenario is not quite correct. I think that Martin saw Zimmerman, who, to him, was simply some creepy dude in a car, following him, so runs towards the house he was staying at, via a route where a car couldn’t go. However, Martin sees Zimmerman has gotten out of his car and followed, so thought better of letting this creepy guy following him know where he was staying, so decided to go back and see what his problem was (this explains the ‘What are you following me for?’ ‘What are you doing here?’ exchange on the phone call to Martin’s girlfriend). At this point, an altercation breaks out, resulting in Martin’s phone call being cut off, but who threw the first punch is not clear. The very fact that Martin was on the phone to his girlfriend at the time, though, suggests it probably wasn’t him. Either way, Zimmerman ends up pulling out his gun and shooting Martin, whilst receiving only minor injuries himself, and the entire sequence of events is set off by Zimmerman deciding that Martin was up to no good because of the suspicious activity of walking home from a local 7-11.
Thorne:
July 18th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
You know, I never thought of this. I always called it looting, no matter who was doing it. Salvage sounds a lot better, I have to admit.
But then I had to think, how does the store owner claim the loss of his stock when it’s all gone? How can he show that the stock was damaged by the flood and not pulled out and sold ahead of time? By “salvaging” these goods, aren’t these people just stealing from the owner?
Besides which, “salvaging” clothes and food might be consistent with looking out for your family. Stealing TV’s and other electronics? Not so much!
oranje:
July 18th, 2012 at 4:14 pm
@lofgren: My apologies if my post wasn’t clearly formed, or if this one isn’t either. I’m on a LOT of allergy meds at the moment, my brain feels like a giant cotton ball, so please permit me to restate.
The point I was going for was that Geraldo – and that entire collection of carbon dioxide machines – has attached themselves to this one element of Trayvon Martin – that he was wearing a hoodie – as a means to ignore any racial element to the case because that surely meant Martin was being intimidating, all the while making themselves look a bit silly.
The bouncer at the bar/lounge I referenced was fixating on very particular things that he associated with gang activity and/or appropriate dress code (I did not emphasize that latter bit enough in my original post) – and while I can’t provide any useful evidence here, suffice it to say this was not a hotbed of gang activity… it was also the kind of lounge where your parents would go before hitting up the Beach Boys concert and hasn’t changed decor since the late 50′s – rather than the point of trying to exclude based on my not fitting the typical clientele, especially as evidence inside the place indicated that any attempt to be a classy establishment went right out the window.
I know, cool story bro.
My suggestion was that he was latching onto the idea of a hoodie arbitrarily, the way Geraldo has here, and that this is then used for the sole justification. I’m not really making a statement about Zimmerman here, though there are plenty that could be made. The stereotyping and profiling based on preconceived biases is what I am attempting to argue against, not in favour of. I’m probably not doing it well at all, and I apologize for that. I’m going to go lay down for a bit.
lofgren:
July 18th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
So? To repeat myself: his bias is not relevant to whether or not his argument succeeds. Whether or not he states it up front.
I think you’re confused. If a lawyer uses emotion-laden language as an attempt to bypass the jurors’ rational faculties, that would be biasing. But prosecutors and defense attorneys themselves are biased by definition. They are paid to be biased, defense attorneys especially.
Who the fuck passed that law while I was away?
So to be clear:
Due to the fact that erichogue argues that self defense is reasonable if you are being stalked, and erichogue believes that Zimmerman is guilty, we can therefore conclude that self defense is not reasonable if you are being stalked. Yeah, that makes sense.
OR we could just assess erichogue’s argument at face value, and then take his bias into account if the argument fails on its merits.
Let’s see: reflexively declare that erichogue is wrong because he has an opinion, or assess based on the merit of his arguments whether or not his bias is reasonable. Which sounds more rational to you?
democommie:
July 18th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
“Because ‘just shooting them’ appears to be legal under the stand your ground law.”
Citation required.
“Obviously I can’t speak to all bars, but in many cases bars that ban gang clothing do so because they know that there are gangs around and they are trying to remain a neutral space.”
Maybe where you live, homes…Where I live, bouncers in the city bars KNOW the gangstas and KNOW that pushing them around is a realllllly bad idea. Far easier and more satisfying to fuck with small people.
Oranje is, iirc, a small WOMAN.
“Also, would you really prefer that the bouncer use his own biases to determine who is in a gang, rather than actual gang insignias? Because that is exactly the kind of double standard that Ed is accusing Zimmerman of having.”
Actually, yes, I would prefer that a bouncer had a fucking brain and was familiar with its operation. A few of the bars in the town I live in have swarms of “security” during the college session. Those people generally have a crew chief who is on hand to keep the submorons on the detail from beating down innocents who piss them off.
Speaking only for myself, there isn’t a club that is so enticing that I would set food inside of it if my legal clothing was deemed “dangerous” by some idiot.
caseloweraz:
July 18th, 2012 at 4:41 pm
But the real question is, “Has G. W. Bush ever worn a hoodie?”
DaveL:
July 18th, 2012 at 4:46 pm
It doesn’t explain the part where Martin tells his girlfriend he lost Zimmerman:
source
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne:
July 18th, 2012 at 5:09 pm
@reverendrodney:
@slc1:
Wikipedia says his name at birth was Gerald Michael Riviera, but they don’t justify the second “i” in “Riviera” and it may be a typo. The body of the article just spells it “Rivera”, and his father’s name is given as “Cruz ‘Allen’ Rivera”. His mother’s maiden name was Friedman.
erichoug:
July 18th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
I know I have a history of being a bit of a gun nut but I absolutely agree with you on this one. Zimmerman should not have been chasing after this kid with a gun. He should have listened to the dispatcher and as far as I am concerned, there is absolutely nothing justified in his behaviour from the time he got out of his car to the time he shot Mr. Martin.
lofgren:
July 18th, 2012 at 5:33 pm
Wouldn’t be the first scrawny gangster of any race or gender. Wouldn’t be the first old, well dressed, female, non-Irish non-Italian non-Russian white, scrawny gangster in a wheelchair wearing a hoodie for the college where her granddaughter played softball. That would be my grandmother.
Quick search didn’t turn up any actual studies on the effectiveness of the practice of banning gang colors at businesses. But gangster or no, what they are trying to keep out are the colors. Gangsters who are unwilling to take off their colors avoid the place. Gangsters who are willing to just take them off and come without them. All you have to do is take off the colors and you can come in, so it’s not really about banning people. And they enforce it across the board because they really just do not want the colors around.
And that obviously does change things quite a bit. I’ve been to a few places where this seemed like a very reasonable restriction. As I said, I don’t really have any evidence but it felt reasonable given what I know about the surroundings. But obviously it is not always, everywhere a reasonable restriction (if it is even as reasonable as it felt to me), and, like any policy left to the judgement of its ultimate enforcers, it can be abused. But in places where it is (or feels like it might be) a reasonable restriction I would prefer it apply to everybody equally rather than the bouncer just making his best guess as to your affiliation.
nathanielfrein:
July 18th, 2012 at 5:38 pm
@43 Erichoug,
You can also argue that looser gun laws would have the same effect. The higher the chance that Martin was also legally carrying, the more impetus Zimmerman would have had to stop and check himself before committing to lethal force in this (or any similar) instance.
Giving Martin the opportunity to legally carry would also have provided him with a better means to defend himself against Zimmerman.
zmidponk:
July 18th, 2012 at 5:39 pm
@ Davel #41
I think Martin temporarily lost Zimmerman when he took off down the path where Zimmerman couldn’t follow in his car, and that’s what he was referring to when he said that he had lost him. However, Zimmerman actually got out of his car and went along the same path. Zimmerman claimed this was to try to see a street sign so he knows where he is, but he actually lives in that neighbourhood, which is a gated community, so I find it a little hard to believe he didn’t actually know. Even if it’s true, though, it is clear that Zimmerman, in ‘searching for a street sign’ crossed the top of the pathway, or possibly went down the pathway that leads to where Martin was staying, and I think that is when Martin saw Zimmerman again, and decided to see what his problem was.
zmidponk:
July 18th, 2012 at 5:57 pm
nathanielfrien #45:
The flaw in that argument is that, in this very case, Zimmerman was exercising a right to carry a gun which was also available to Martin. This failed to cause Zimmerman to have the caution you think free ownership of guns cause people to have, unless he actually knew Martin was unarmed, in which case, looser gun laws would simply mean Zimmerman might have had a bigger and better gun to shoot Martin with. In addition, Zimmerman claims that, in the altercation they got into, Martin was attempting to get Zimmerman’s gun, and was threatening to kill him with his own gun. If you believe this, looser gun laws would simply mean that there would be more guns and/or more powerful guns for the combatants to try to wrest from each other in any similar physical confrontation.
zmidponk:
July 18th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Me, #47:
The flaw in that argument is that, in this very case, Zimmerman was exercising a right to carry a gun which was also available to Martin.
Actually, no, sorry, I’m forgetting Martin’s age. He couldn’t carry a gun as, legally, he’s a kid. In which case, the ‘looser gun laws providing caution’ argument only applies here if they’re so loose 17-year-olds can carry guns.
nathanielfrein:
July 18th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
@zmidponk
That assumes you can accurately gauge that a person Martin’s age is over or under the “line” of majority. I can’t, and it gets harder every year I get older.
Looser concealed carry laws also would not have lead to Zimmerman being able to carry a “bigger” gun than Martin. There’s only so big you can get, and I’d posit that there’s not much difference between a desert eagle and a .38 special in this situation. To be big enough to make a difference is to be big enough to be obvious, at which point Martin can legitimately call the police to say “a man is stalking me with a gun”.
Further, it seems to me that Martin would only have been going for Zimmerman’s gun because he saw it during the altercation and recognized it as a threat (one of the responsibilities you assume when you decide to carry a gun).
Zimmerman is the kind of nut who was willing to jump through any hoop to legally carry a gun. Because he knows the obstacles involved, he also knows how low the chance someone else is legally carrying. Ergo, lowering the requirements to legally carry would certainly give him more pause before engaging a random stranger.
Modusoperandi:
July 18th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
DaveL “Because the reasons people articulate are always the real reasons for their beliefs or behaviour. Also, birthers totally threw the same hissy fit over Ronald Reagan’s birth certificate, and FOX routinely refers to the wives of presidential candidates of any race as their ‘baby momma.’”
And don’t forget the time the Reagan’s invited “rapper thugs” to the White House.
lofgren “Of course it’s right. The exact same factors that makes them useful for people who are up to no good also make them useful for protecting you from the cold and wet. See also: ski masks, trenchcoats.”
Also, mustaches.
eric “Because ‘just shooting them’ appears to be legal under the stand your ground law, but if you do something non-lethal, and they start running away, and then you shoot them, you lose your self-defense defense.”
You can always find them later on and shoot them. It’s “Stood your ground” law.
Eric “Asking a skeptical audience of a blog works in much the same way.”
But is that true? Are we skeptical?
nathanielfrein “Giving Martin the opportunity to legally carry would also have provided him with a better means to defend himself against Zimmerman.”
Headline: ‘Hoodie-wearing gang member starts shootout’
lofgren:
July 18th, 2012 at 6:33 pm
I can’t believe I didn’t think of that one!
Another thing about all of those items of apparel: one of the reasons they are favored by thugs is precisely because they are worn by lots and lots of non-thugs as well. In real life criminals don’t run around dressed like the Riddler and Two-Face.
DaveL:
July 18th, 2012 at 6:39 pm
It’s possible, but the accumulated evidence shows conclusively that at one point Zimmerman was pursuing and Martin was evading. There’s no evidence at any point either that Zimmerman broke off the pursuit or that Martin changed his mind about evading Zimmerman and started pursuing him. In the absence of such evidence, I’m not inclined to believe this actually happened.
nathanielfrein:
July 18th, 2012 at 7:18 pm
@ModusOperandi
This assumes the situation even came to a shootout. By removing Zimmerman’s offensive superiority, his inclination to engage Martin in the first place would be reduced. Martin’s power to de-escalate the situation would also be greater.
nathanielfrein:
July 18th, 2012 at 8:13 pm
I’d also like to point out that Martin would not have had to carry a gun to benefit from looser gun carry laws.
This is born out by a situation in Florida where the state decided to require rental cars to have special license plates.
This, combined with the fact that FL does not honor out of state gun permits, meant that the rate of carjackings for rental cars skyrocketed.
As soon as the requirement was repealed and rental cars started using the same license plates as any other cars, the carjacking rates of rental cars went back to being the same as all cars owned by residents.
zmidponk:
July 18th, 2012 at 8:15 pm
nathanielfrein #49:
Well, Zimmerman either could or couldn’t. If he could, then he knew Martin was unarmed, yet still ended up shooting him. If he couldn’t, this failed to instill the caution in him you mentioned.
It would not necessarily have meant Zimmerman was carrying a bigger gun, but looser gun laws meant that that would possibly have been the only difference – that Martin ended up being shot with a bigger calibre bullet.
Well, according to Zimmerman, Martin saw it whilst it was still in its holster and reached for it, so Zimmerman grabbed it before Martin could use it. However, there are inconsistencies over Zimmerman’s version of events. The precise details of how the struggle for the gun occurred are actually irrelevant to my point, though. Let’s say gun laws in Florida were looser, and Martin also had a gun. Zimmerman and Martin get into a physical altercation. Martin not only sees Zimmerman’s gun, but Zimmerman also sees Martin’s gun. Now both parties have access to two potential weapons, instead of only one. Does this increase or decrease the probability of one or both of them getting shot?
Well, Florida requires a license for concealed carry, but is a ‘shall issue’ state. This means that, as long as Martin met the criteria, he could get a license, and the criteria are nothing particularly unusual. More generally, Florida gun laws are not regarded as being particularly tight.
DaveL #52:
Personally, I agree it’s likely he was actually continuing pursuit, but even if we accept Zimmerman’s story that he was only looking for a street sign, it’s easy to see how Martin could think Zimmerman was still following him, even if he wasn’t.
Well, I dunno. I could easily see how Martin might simply have gotten pissed off at this creep following him, so simply have turned around, walked up to him and asked him why he was following him.
WMDKitty (Always growing and learning):
July 18th, 2012 at 8:23 pm
@Nathanielfrein — Exactly. And that’s why we should ban personal ownership of firearms.
DaveL:
July 18th, 2012 at 9:12 pm
It’s easy to imagine motivations as to why he might do that, but I’m pointing out there’s no evidence he actually did. His girlfriend’s testimony covers the period from when he lost Zimmerman to when the two actually met, and nothing she reports indicates he had decided to seek out and confront Zimmerman.
nathanielfrein:
July 18th, 2012 at 9:53 pm
I don’t see how, at this point, Martin has any LESS of a chance of getting shot. Being presented with the possibility that Martin can try to shoot Zimmerman without trying to take his gun first gives Zimmerman impetus to de-escalate and back off. It also gives Martin a better chance of taking out Zimmerman first, and given the same evidence (the phone calls, Zimmerman’s behavior, Zimmerman’s possession of a gun, etc) would have gone much further in a justification defense for Martin.
I will admit I overestimated the red string involved in getting a CCP in Florida. As you say, in this situation Zimmerman disregarded the risk. I still feel that Martin would have had a better chance had he been armed.
This is a shitty situation. I think Zimmerman should go to jail for manslaughter at the least. But I don’t see tighter gun laws solving this problem. Zimmerman showed multiple instances of disregarding authority while acting as a member of the neighborhood watch. He disregarded the police and disregarded neighborhood watch policy to not go armed. I don’t think it would have been much of a stretch for him to choose to carry a gun illegally. He is, if anything, a few shades away from a full on zealot.
@WMDKitty
I’m sorry, I don’t agree. We need to encourage personal gun ownership.
Simply banning gun ownership will not prevent armed crime. It’s the same logic that says that outlawing drugs makes the drug problem go away.
All that banning gun ownership does is take guns away from honest people. When a criminal knows that an honest person WILL NOT have a gun, he knows that the chance that the person will have an adequate response to deadly force is almost nil.
A person who is willing to leverage deadly force to take something from somebody else has no consideration for anyone else. The only thing thing they really care about is their own life. Ergo, the only way to actively discourage them is to increase the chance that any random mark might have deadly force of their own.
opyros:
July 18th, 2012 at 10:41 pm
Snopes says Rivera’s name is legitimate.
democommie:
July 19th, 2012 at 12:21 am
nathanielfrein:
You’re a moron. Are you the same guy who posted here:
http://s12.invisionfree.com/CSSSB/ar/t62.htm ?
If so, be advised that childish, immature role-playing is fine in the playworld of cyberspace. It’s fucking stupid in meatspace.
Zimmerman is a delusional or just plain stupid fucker who got his hands on a gun that made him feel like a real man. Bad shit, as is too often the case in such circumstances, ensued.
Real people with real gunz kill other people whether those people have gunz or not. If everyone is armed (which seems to be a masturbatory notion of idjits like you) then LOTS of people are going to wind up shot to death. It’s not a fucking video game, son, it’s the real world.
nathanielfrein:
July 19th, 2012 at 1:11 am
Know what? Let me add…I want to thank you. I thought I’d lost those three chapters (assuming you looked at the work under Stephen Daedalus) when my hard drive went up in flames.
Looks like I don’t have to start from scratch after all.
StevoR:
July 19th, 2012 at 1:11 am
Put me down as someone else who thinks Zimmerman’s word on this isn’t necessarily reliable whether Zimmerman seriously thinks he’s being honest but subconsciously was (quite likely) driven by racism and that inner play script that #27 lorn referred to very well or is conciously lying to justify his actions.
@12. erichoug :
Why? Working for what purpose here?
I think it sounds plausible enough but we simply don’t know for sure. There’s a lot of reporting in the media and various commenters have put various spins on what might’ve happened and we all have our opinions* but only a few people know for sure what occurred – if them.
I think there’s going to be a trial where, hopefully good evidence such as forensics work scientifically conducted will be presented before a Judge or Jury and we’ll get a better clearer understanding from that after which there will be a legal outcome beyond reasonable doubt where Zimmerman will possibly be :
- found legally guilty of manslaughter or murder,
- aquitted on the grounds of self-defense or this stupid law,
- pleading guilty to murder or manslaughter
- be found not guilty by reason of mental incompetence,
- a hung jury outcome and possible retrial
- the prosecution will withdraw the case on realising that the evidence fails to support them possibly allowing a future retrial.
Disclaimer : IANAL .
IOW, wait and see what transpires here. The media information isn’t comprehensively conclusive although we certainly all have our impressions of what may well have happened in this case and there is evidence for some of these impressions more than there is others.
* For whatever little its wotrth I think Zimmerman chasedand murdered Trayvon Martin. He clearly acted wrongly in pursuing Trayvon depsite being instructed not to do so.
Well, you did ask.
StevoR:
July 19th, 2012 at 1:21 am
Because the human mind and memory is sometimes unreliable and because misunderstandings often occur. Eyewitnesses evidence is frequently suspect as I gather many pyschology studies have shown.
It is very likely that Zimmerman thinks he knows for sure what happened but, in fact, bases his knowledge on a misunderstanding of what Trayvon Martin was doing and how Martin mistakenly or otherwise percieved what Zimmerman was doing.
It is also possible that trauma to the head – assuming Zimmerman’s injuries were caused in the scuffle that apparently occurred – has affected Zimmerman’s memory and so he himself does not recall or properly recall the entireity of what took place.
nathanielfrein:
July 19th, 2012 at 1:43 am
Y’know…one more thing. I don’t know if or when my original response will show up. I hope it does but it seems to be lost in some purgatory, but my follow up comment hasn’t so that’s probably going to be confusing.
My friend who started that site? He’s dead. He officially died from a “self inflicted gunshot wound”. So, once again…I know how guns work.
dingojack:
July 19th, 2012 at 2:26 am
uh nathanielfrein (#58), it’s red tape. [/pedant]
“Simply banning gun ownership will not prevent armed crime…”
No, but it’ll make it a shitload harder to do. First, you’ve got find someone with a gun you can steal, rent or buy. If you take the latter two options, you’ve got have the readdies, or be prepared to cut them in. Guys who do these kind of transactions aren’t choirboys, they tend to be ‘known to the police’. Even if they’re paying off the cops, a spate of drive-bys (or whatever) makes the cops look bad. They don’t like losing authority and or ‘face’ so …
Not a very well thought out argument.
[Or a shorter version: citation required].
“All that banning gun ownership does is take guns away from honest people”.
So the cops see a guy in a ski-mask fleeing a convenience store and people yelling ‘stop thief’ (or similar) so they arrest him, but noticing he’s armed with a gun they say ‘oh that’s OK son, you keep that, you’re gonna need in jail’, right?
I really don’t think you’ve thought this out very thoroughly.
“When a criminal knows that an honest person WILL NOT have a gun, he knows that the chance that the person will have an adequate response to deadly force is almost nil”.
We’ve all seen the movie. Our hero is fleeing though and alleyway pursued by a bad guy with a gun, he ducks behind a dumpster, picks up a pipe (or the like) and lays in wait. The hero jumps out of the shadows and ‘thunk’, he overcomes deadly force.
Or you’ve seen the grainy footage of a hero convenience-store clerks overcoming gunman using a two-by-four, or baseball bat or the like.
Having a gun doesn’t mean an automatic win. You have to be in the right environment and you have to hit your target (not always easy) and you have be luckier and more resourceful than your potential victim. As Democommie pointed out earlier: it’s not a videogame, it’s the real world.
Dingo
—–
Besides you don’t need a gun to kill someone.
If Thomas Kelly had been tooled-up with Gatling gun, in this case it wouldn’t have made a blind bit of difference. He’d still be dead.
bad Jim:
July 19th, 2012 at 3:25 am
This is too much:
StevoR:
July 19th, 2012 at 6:15 am
@64.nathanielfrein :
Condolences. To put it way too mildly, that sucks.
StevoR:
July 19th, 2012 at 6:17 am
@66. bad Jim : Yeesh.
Sounds like Zimmerman’s already going the jailhouse Christian route hoping it’ll reduce his sentence or see him get off.
Or is that too cynical of me?
nathanielfrein:
July 19th, 2012 at 6:59 am
I appreciate the condolences.
But having slept on it I would have rather not made the post in the first place. It was part of a rather stronger reaction then Democommie deserved for digging up a seven year old website just to ad hominem me.
lofgren:
July 19th, 2012 at 8:09 am
It takes a true gun nut to argue that Trayvon Martin would be better off with a greater likelihood of shoot outs on the street. Not to mention all of the people around him.
People are hotheaded morons. More guns on the street means more killings. It means a more acessible black market, and if handguns are common on the streets that means that more powerful weapons are also going to be more common as the people who actually conduct their business with guns – from gangbangers to high-level security contractors – escalate in response to the fact that everybody and his aunt carries a gun.
I’ll buy that that would act as a deterrent to some types of crime. I doubt it would matter in this case. There were other imbalances at play. As Modusoperandi pointed out, the situation would almost certainly have been worse for Trayvon if he had a gun. I believe that in this fantasy world of yours, Zimmerman would have noted the suspicious black kid walking too slowly in the rain, assumed that he was armed, called the police, and then started trailing him. Martin loses him temporarily. Let’s assume the most generous possible interpretation of that scenario and say that they met up with each other again by coincidence. Zimmerman simply didn’t leave the area immediately and Martin, on foot, ended up on the same street.
At some point, an altercation occurs. So are we assuming that, instead of confronting Zimmerman with his words or his fists, Martin would have pulled a gun on Zimmerman? At this point, would he be justified in pulling the trigger? Does he have to fire a warning shot up in the air like they do in the movies? If Zimmerman also pulls his gun, is he justified in firing? At this point we have an overzealous neighborhood watcher with privilege issues and a kid trying to get home to eat his candy out of the rain. This is a stupid thing to get shot over.
Martin did not recognize Zimmerman, and Zimmerman did not know Martin. Their relationship at the point that Martin’s hypothetical gun would have been most likely to alter the situation, they could have been a rapist who preys on teenage boys and a gangbanger scouting for home invasions or a guy who found a lost dog and is driving around looking for the owner, and a guy looking for his lost dog in the rain. Baring in mind that at this point these two people know enough about each other that all three of these situations are effectively identical, who should get shot?
Or is this one of those fantasy worlds where everybody has a gun but nobody ever uses them? People are hotheaded morons. The whole reason that Zimmerman was following Martin to begin with is that he is a hotheaded moron. Involving guns in more human interactions will lead to more shootings. Every argument in favor of more lax gun control laws to deter crime hinges on a tiny fraction of human interactions tailored to be perfect examples of when the victim would have been aided by the presence of a(nother) gun, assumes that they would have used it exactly as judiciously as the arguer believes is appropriate in hindsight, and ignores the vast majority of human interactions where more guns would be a a very bad thing. I guarantee there will be at least 20 arguments today that don’t end in a shooting only because neither of the participants has a gun handy.
I’ve been stopped by a dude with a flashlight at night who was curious what I was up to. I don’t resent it too much. I was a teenager – in a hoodie no less – loitering on the street late at night in a friend’s neighborhood. He was perhaps a bit overzealous about security but there had been some break-ins in the neighborhood recently and he didn’t recognize me. I introduced myself and moved on my way. I’m glad he had a flashlight and not a gun. I’m glad I don’t feel like I have to carry a gun to protect myself from people like him, who are just trying to be neighborly but perhaps overstepping a bit. Even Zimmerman’s motives could be seen in that light. All he really wanted was to make sure his neighborhood was safe. He was not very good at the how and the from whom, but you can’t fault him for wanting to live in a safe place and prevent crime.
Anti-gun control advocates who use the deterrent argument also like to point to statistics on current gun owners that show those gun owners are fairly responsible. That would probably still be true if we made a shift to the kind of society where carrying a concealed weapon on your person at all times was the norm. But if 10% (or even less) of current concealed-carry permit holders behave irresponsibly, that would be a big problem if almost 300 million people are carrying them. And that’s assuming that percentage wouldn’t change , since presumably if guns are as common as wallets there would be a lot more people with the kind of mentality that leads to misusing a gun having guns. I’m sure when credit cards were only possessed by a tiny fraction of the population, the statistics on using those showed that credit card owners were mostly responsible with them, too.
And all of this still ignores the other imbalances in the situation that would have put Martin at a disadvantage. Would a black teenager feel like he could shoot a middle aged white guy without ruining the rest of his life? Personal factors matter immensely, too. If Zimmerman is more zealous about his self-appointed mission than Martin is annoyed by Zimmerman acting like a dick, Martin is just as likely to get shot. And all of the other Martins are more likely to get shot by Zimmermans. Think about all of the incidents of police brutality that we read about on this very blog. Do you think cops would be less likely to assault young black men if it was actually reasonable and warranted to assume that the young black men were armed? No, there would just be more shootings of young black men by the police. They wouldn’t even have to plant the evidence when they testify that he drew on them. More guns on the street means more guns in the hands of the Zimmermans of the world as well – and probably at a higher rate than the Trayvon Martins of the world.
Of all the hypothetical ways that the situation of two strangers approaching each other suspiciously could potentially play out, the fraction where two guns plays out better than no guns is going to be tiny.
nathanielfrein:
July 19th, 2012 at 8:44 am
People are hotheaded morons. Okay. And if I know my temper can get me shot, then I’m less likely to act in an irresponsible way.
Once the scuffle started, once Martin knew Zimmerman possessed a gun, he would have been able to respond more effectively if he had his own gun. The situation could easily have gone differently once Zimmerman knew Martin had the same access to deadly force.
Mutually Assured Destruction also comes into play here. The only time atomic weapons were ever used as more than a threat was when only one person had them. The only people currently willing to use them are so far outside normal human behavior that we can pretty much call them insane.
If people know that the other party their dealing with is just as capable of deadly force, we treat them with constraint. People may be hotheaded, but they also tend to respect deadly force.
Further, if I know that in one area 25% of the law abiding citizens are legally armed; and in another area 75% are legally armed, then I’m going to case marks in the former area, not the latter. This means that even the 25% who aren’t carrying a legal weapon to benefit from this.
And while irresponsible use of legally owned guns is a concern, moral absolutism over the problem isn’t necessarily the right answer. If, five years after reducing gun restrictions, a city sees the average amounts of killings by legally owned guns increase by twenty, but the average amount of killings by illegally owned guns reduced by forty, then in balance the measure has succeeded. Yes, people have been killed by legally owned guns. Yes, that is wrong. But if our answer to that wrong ends up allowing more deaths, then I can’t see that answer as being correct.
nathanielfrein:
July 19th, 2012 at 8:45 am
“Other party they’re dealing with”
nathanielfrein:
July 19th, 2012 at 8:47 am
“This means that even the 25% of law abiding citizens who aren’t carrying a weapon benefit from the greater number of carrying citizenry”.
I should probably go drink some coffee before posting more…
Raging Bee:
July 19th, 2012 at 9:42 am
I suspect that the lesson bigots will take from this case is that you’d better just shoot first, and not bother to chase anyone down. Just immediately use lethal force the moment you are in close contact with someone you don’t like.
That’s the major problem with counting on a gun for personal self-protection (laws or no laws): it doesn’t widen your options all that much, and actually narrows them in many ways. Either you pull it — before the other guy can pull his, if he has one, which isn’t always discernable in advance — or it’s just dead weight; and once you’ve pulled it, you either fire it — to kill, since the less vital parts of a body are harder to aim for — or again, it’s just dead weight.
I’m not totally anti-gun, but we really need to remind ourselves how totally fucking overrated and overromanticized they are. They’re weapons, folks, not magical talismans or cultural icons.
democommie:
July 19th, 2012 at 10:03 am
“@ModusOperandi
This assumes the situation even came to a shootout. By removing Zimmerman’s offensive superiority, his inclination to engage Martin in the first place would be reduced.”
Critical thinking? You’re not doing it right. The whole rationale for arming of the populace (CCW being a subset of those weapons) is that people won’t know they’re armed and will leave them the fuck alone. Thus far that premise is an epic FAIL in the states with the least amount of regulation of firearms.
“As soon as the requirement was repealed and rental cars started using the same license plates as any other cars, the carjacking rates of rental cars went back to being the same as all cars owned by residents.”
Do you read what you type before you hit “send”? CHANGING the license plates would be a far more likely proximate cause of carjackings going down. The people that were carjacked in the carjackin’crimewave in the 80′s in South FL were, iirc, mostly TOURISTS FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES. Most of those tourists would not be carrying gunz, here or at home, dumbfuck.
“Know what? Let me add…I want to thank you. I thought I’d lost those three chapters (assuming you looked at the work under Stephen Daedalus) when my hard drive went up in flames.
Looks like I don’t have to start from scratch after all.”
So, you are that idiot, figures.
‘My friend who started that site? He’s dead. He officially died from a “self inflicted gunshot wound”. So, once again…I know how guns work.”
As I said, macho bullshit gunposturing is fine IN CYBERSPACE. When it leaks over into meatspace it does not work as advertised.
“I appreciate the condolences.
But having slept on it I would have rather not made the post in the first place. It was part of a rather stronger reaction then Democommie deserved for digging up a seven year old website just to ad hominem me.”
Look up “ad hominem”, shit-for-brainz, you’ve got it completely bassackwards.
You’re arguments are crap and you’re a fucking dickhead. If your arguments were sound it would be because you knew how to read and process information instead of puking up the gunzloonz talking points you’ve been spouting here in the thread. Each and every one of your “premises” has been debunked, years ago. You’re a fucking tool.
Natty bumpkin doublez down on teh burnin’stoopit:
“Further, if I know that in one area 25% of the law abiding citizens are legally armed; and in another area 75% are legally armed, then I’m going to case marks in the former area, not the latter. This means that even the 25% who aren’t carrying a legal weapon to benefit from this.”
Gotta citation to back up that wetdream scenario of yours?
“I should probably go drink some coffee before posting more.”
Do that, in a library, while reading some genuine data about the subject in which you’re currently displaying JESUSlIVESINALLOFUS level indignorance.
BTW, since you haven’t, in all likelihood, troubled yourself to look up the definition of an ad hominem, here’s the short version of the simple way to know what one is.
“You’re a Schaivo-1 level braindead fuckwad; therefor, your argument is stupid and wrong.”.
is an ad hom.
“”You’re a Schaivo-1 level braindead fuckwad AND your argument is stupid and wrong.”.
IS NOT.
“It is also possible that trauma to the head – assuming Zimmerman’s injuries were caused in the scuffle that apparently occurred – has affected Zimmerman’s memory and so he himself does not recall or properly recall the entireity of what took place.”
The photos released by Zimmerman’s legal team are, afaia, not those taken by the police while Zimmerman was in their custody. They are, to say the least, suspect in their authenticity.
democommie:
July 19th, 2012 at 10:12 am
“I’m not totally anti-gun, but we really need to remind ourselves how totally fucking overrated and overromanticized they are. They’re weapons, folks, not magical talismans or cultural icons.”
I LIKE guns. I like them a LOT. I just don’t own any, or shoot any, or dream that I can be the guy in charge of the world when I have one in my rock steady grip, locked, loaded and aimed right at the bad guy’z brainpan.
Knuckleheadz like NathanielFried are the ones who make me anti-assholes/idiots with gunz.
The true cost of firearms violence in this country is in the multiple $B’s when one considers hospitalizations for injuries, lost productivity and the costs of apprehension, incarceration and execution of killers or would be killers–stupidental* or intentional.
External costs of firearms violence are borne by the population at large–particularly the victims of same–and not the idiots with the gunz.
* Stupidental is the modifier I prefer for firearms injuries and deaths resulting from wholly predictable and preventable discharges of firearms by people–many of them staunch 2nd Amendment advocates and NRA members–who ignore the 4 basic rules of gun safety.
Nathaniel Frein:
July 19th, 2012 at 10:43 am
So cite something that debunks me.
Nathaniel Frein:
July 19th, 2012 at 10:46 am
Which lumps costs of people using guns illegally as well as legally.
And exactly how have our policies effectively kept illegal guns off the street?
lofgren:
July 19th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Interesting. So now we can shoot people if they lose their temper. You’re making the same mistake as economists, assuming that
Yeah, Zimmerman would have shot the angry black kid faster.
Please state:
1. Exactly when Zimmerman is justified in using deadly force against Martin
2. Exactly when Martin is justified in using deadly force against Zimmerman.
So you have assumed that two people, each assuming that the other is armed, get in a fight. During the fight, Zimmerman sees that Martin has a gun, and Martin sees that Zimmerman has a gun. Since we’re assuming that Martin’s gun saves him, we’ll assume that Martin draws first and shoots Zimmerman. It’s still impossible to know what Martin knew at this point. Did Zimmerman identify himself before or during the fight? Did he say that the police are coming? Martin is a 17-year-old black kid standing over the body of a middle aged guy who he cannot identify who did nothing at this point except be overeager in his focus to the point that he made somebody feel uncomfortable. This is a preferable situation to you?
1. If 300 million people had atomic weapons, you can bet your ass they would have been used.
2. Mutually assured destruction relies on the near-certainty of retaliation. So in this universe:
17 year olds can carry concealed weapons and should be expected to carry them in order to get safely to and home from the convenience store.
Neighborhood watch patrols can carry guns.
It’s legal to shoot people if they lose their temper.
It’s legal to shoot somebody at some nebulous point between being followed and being in a fistfight with somebody.
It’s legal to shoot somebody in retaliation for shooting somebody. (Is there a point where this chain ends?)
That must be why Canada has such a massive violent crime problem compared to the US. Since so many more people in the US are armed, criminals are respectful, but in Canada they kill wantonly because everybody there is defenseless.
Neither Trayvon Martin nor Zimmerman were “casing” anything. BOTH thought they were acting in self-defense. This is exactly the kind of situation when a gun exacerbates the situation rather than improves, and two guns don’t magically make everybody OK again.
Moral absolutism has fuck all to do with anything. You’re talking about a hypothetical universe where 75% of the citizenry of the United States, including people who can’t currently vote, carry concealed weapons on stroll through their own neighborhood to buy some candy. That’s not just a matter of changing the laws. That’s a completely different culture. This is Florida we are talking about, where they already have concealed carry permits and 43% of the population owns a gun. The restrictions on owning and carrying a concealed weapon are lax. We’ve already established that you would do away with the age restriction. How easy do you need to make it? Would you get rid of the gun safety training requirement? Would you make it as lax as, say, Vermont, where you don’t need any license to carry? Yet I am fairly certain that 75% of people in Vermont do not carry guns all the time or even often. (Anecdotal – I know many Vermonters and have spent some time there.)
If a city puts literally thousands more guns on the street and people feel the need to carry them everywhere they go as a basic safety measure, there will be more gun deaths. The change to the culture that you propose is not just a matter of laws. To achieve the level of “safety” you propose, millions more guns would be available and in regular use (assuming use means carrying for the purposes of personal protection).
Look, I think this country has made some missteps in the gun control area and I don’t think that stricter laws are always the answer, but that is because we live in a society where most people do not carry guns with them as part of their daily ensemble. Most people who get guns are responsible, and if they are not responsible then at least their guns are usually at home and get taken out to be used irresponsibly in places where they are less likely to incur severe legal penalties. I don’t think that irresponsible people carrying guns would become the norm if 75% of the population carried a concealed weapon (including teenagers for fuck’s sake!), but I do think they would be a hell of a lot more common than they are now.
Zimmerman’s zealotry for patrolling his neighborhood and preventing crime by hassling black teenagers is not an aberration. A world with more armed people means more armed Zimmermans which means more armed altercations between the Martins and Zimmermans of the world. In some cases, that will end better than this incident did. In most it will not.
If we did live in a world where everybody carried guns, strict and meticulous laws concerning their use and when and where it is appropriate to carry and draw them and why would be an absolute imperative.
Nathaniel Frein:
July 19th, 2012 at 11:07 am
Okay. How about the fact that Britain has experienced a steady rise in violent crime since adopting stricter gun control laws?
1. Zimmerman is justified in using deadly force the exact moment that Martin tries to use deadly force as a leverage for violating Zimmerman’s rights.
2. Martin is justified in using deadly force the exact moment that Zimmerman tries to use deadly force as a leverage for violating Martin’s rights.
Assuming that we can more or less trust Zimmerman’s account, and we posit that Martin had a gun. Neither one is definitively aware that the other has a gun until Zimmerman engages Martin.
In the original situation, Martin realizes Zimmerman has a gun, tries to get it from Zimmerman (to eliminate it as a threat to him) and gets shot.
In the hypothetical situation, yes, a few things could happen.
A) Zimmerman backs off because he doesn’t want to get shot.
B) Zimmerman goes for his gun, Martin is faster, and Martin takes down Zimmerman (self defense).
C) They both go for their guns and both manage to get a fatal shot off.
D) Zimmerman goes for his gun, and is faster than Martin, and still kills Martin. Situation is the same. The evidence leading up to the situation is the same. Zimmerman is still in the position he is now, and Martin is still dead.
Three of those situations are preferable to Martin’s death. Martin was not the aggressor. Even Zimmerman’s accounts don’t really put him as a real aggressor.
Okay, fair enough. I’ll rephrase. If I know that the person I’m dealing with is just as likely to be able to kill me as I am to kill him, I am less likely to try to use my ability to instigate deadly force in the event that I become angry at him.
I’m not trying to say this. The original point I was trying to make (and I may very well have made it badly) was that increasing gun control would not have prevented this.
I was trying to make the point that people do not have to carry a gun to benefit from reasonable gun laws. I don’t think everyone should be able to carry a gun, just like I don’t think everyone should be able to drive a car.
lofgren:
July 19th, 2012 at 11:17 am
D’oh. Edit fail. This should have been:
Interesting. So now we can shoot people if they lose their temper. You’re making the same mistake as economists, assuming that people will behave rationally and in the long-term interests of themselves and society. But in situations where a person has cause – or thinks they have cause – to draw a gun and shoot somebody, they are rarely in a rational state of mind. Neither Zimmerman nor Martin were thinking rationally when Martin was shot. Both were afraid for their lives. If Zimmerman is guilty, it’s because he tragically misread the situation and created a perceived threat through sheer dumbassery. Those situations are not going to go away magically. They’re just going to get worse if everybody is armed.
This is a tragic misunderstanding. Motivated by racism and zealotry, but a misunderstanding nonetheless. Adding more guns to the situation would not have improved it, as the neighborhood watch organization that Zimmerman belonged to already knew, which is why he wasn’t supposed to be carrying a gun in the first place.
Nathaniel Frein:
July 19th, 2012 at 11:21 am
I’m not saying people will act in their long term interests. I’m saying they’ll act in the short term interest of not getting shot by the guy they annoyed at, just like that guy is acting in the short term interest of not getting shot by the guy (me) that he is equally annoyed at.
And I’m saying that stronger gun laws would very likely not have stopped him. He showed a pattern of escalating behavior leading up to this incident. This pattern very easily would have lead him to acquiring a gun illicitly if he could not do so legally.
lofgren:
July 19th, 2012 at 11:29 am
It’s rare that you get such a blatant admission that somebody is a bully and an asshole.
When people lose their temper, they lose their temper. They are no longer calmly factoring the consequences of their actions and rationally assessing the appropriate and proportional response. If they did that, then we wouldn’t call it losing your temper.
If you pick on people just because you know you can get away with it, you are a bully and an asshole, and preventing you from walking the streets with a gun is far preferable to me than arming your victims.
B) Zimmerman goes for his gun, Martin is faster, and Martin takes down Zimmerman (self defense).
Because a black teenager will have no problem convincing the police and a jury of that.
Because in most cases where one of the 75% of gun-carrying teenagers pulls a gun, the situation will be this clear.
Because just the fact that Martin shot Zimmerman in what is technically self-defense, that is a satisfactory outcome to this situation.
IF somehow the “A” situation occured, that would be an improvement. This is of course ignoring the effects on Martin and Zimmerman’s behavior up to the point that they were in a fistfight if they both had good reason to assume that the other was armed and prepared to kill.
Nathaniel Frein:
July 19th, 2012 at 11:39 am
So when you use human behavior to justify your position, you’re pragmatic, but when I spin the same behavior a different way, I’m an asshole?
lofgren:
July 19th, 2012 at 11:55 am
No, that’s bullshit. That is not your claim. You can’t make that your claim now.
Your claim is that laxer gun laws – more people like Zimmerman walking around with guns – would prevent people like Martin from being killed. Those are two different claims.
Even if that’s true in this case (I was not aware that Zimmerman had a pattern of illegal gun purchasing), it’s fundamental to your argument that gun controls prevent some people from carrying guns, because you perceive that the difference between the 5% of Floridians who carry guns and the 75% who you believe should be carrying guns is the result of overly strict laws. But those 75% must include more people like Zimmerman, people who want guns, who don’t behave responsibly, and are for some reason unable to get them due to the harsh gun control laws in one of the least restrictive gun states in the country.
We know that some people will illegally carry guns if gun control laws are restrictive. If your only claim was that in this one case Zimmerman’s pattern of behavior suggests that he would not have been deterred by a law that restricted his access to guns, we’d have little to talk about. I don’t know enough about Zimmerman’s psychology to know if he would break the law to purchase a gun, nor about his personal life to know if illegally acquiring a gun was something that he could feasibly do, nor whether he would take it upon himself to patrol the neighborhood with his illegal gun knowing the even if he prevented a crime he would probably go to jail when the police arrived.
But your claim is that laxer gun control laws will in general prevent this kind of situation because if not for our strict laws 3/4 of the population would own and carry a gun. This is a very different claim because it’s not just about this one guy in this one situation, it’s about every time a middle aged security conscious guy and a black teenager perceive each other as a threat – in fact it is broadly about every interaction between two strangers where one might feel uncomfortable.
lofgren:
July 19th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
You’re an asshole if you mistreat people because you can get away with it, which is what you have admitted to.
Honestly, even if you are a bully who is less likely to mistreat people if they have a gun, I’d rather just stop you from mistreating people through less deadly means.
Nathaniel Frein:
July 19th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
I did not at any point intend to imply or state that I mistreat people or that I personally require deadly force to prevent me from doing so.
If that is how I came across, then my apologies.
erichoug:
July 19th, 2012 at 12:18 pm
@Nathaniel Frein
You’re wasting your time, brother. There is no possiblity of a rational discussion on gun rights with many of the people on Sceptic web sites.
Notice how you present a fairly sane and rational argument free of anger, cursing, invective or ad hominem attacks but the other side doesn’t feel any need to respond in kind. Instead they go after you with both barrels(haha).
There are no facts that you can give them, no statistics you can cite, no arguments you can make that will mean anything. you will only be insulted, belittled and dismissed.
Sceptics, much like priests, on this issue don’t tolerate dissent and are not interested in rational discussion.
Which may go a long way towards explaining why they have lost so badly on the issue of guns.
lofgren:
July 19th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
You said:
I am using “you” in the same way that you are using “I.” If it refers to you personally, then I mean you personally. If you are speaking broadly and hypothetically, then I am speaking broadly and hypothetically. But whoever this “I” person to whom you refer is, he/she/it is behaving much more rationally than I give most people credit for.
They are behaving like the hypothetical person who refrains from committing murder because they live in a death penalty state. But most people who commit murder do so either without concern for what will happen if they get caught or because they think they will get away with it. The difference between life in prison and the death sentence doesn’t factor. Likewise, when those hotheaded morons I referred to earlier – people like Zimmerman – go looking for trouble and pull their guns, they are not thinking about what happens if they fail. They are heedless of the consequences because they are either in a rage, or because they assume that they will have control of the situation, or in this case due to paranoia and bigotry.
Zimmerman’s cost/benefit apparatus was already askew. I doubt more black teenagers roaming his streets armed with handguns would have calmed him down and made him think more clearly. If 75% of the population is armed, multiply that by hundreds, thousands, however many Zimmermans you believe there are in the country.
No Light:
July 19th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
@NathanielFrein – what has the UK got to do with anything? Even before the gun laws were tightened (in the wake of the Dunblane massacre), guns were not weapons carried on the person and used on the streets, as they are in the US. They were used for hunting, at gun clubs, and by farmers. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous at best, and at worst is evidence of you being a giant shitweasel.
Gun ownership in the UK is higher now than at any other time. Gun control laws aren’t about stopping the ownership/usage of guns for recreation and pest control, but to control who has access to guns, to control how they’re used, and to control where they’re used.
Funny isn’t it, that gun control laws are used to control the use and ownership of guns.
What’s funnier still is that your claim of “higher violent crime”, something that you’re implying is due to a lack of guns, correlates so nicely with the rising rate of firearm ownership. Ruh-roh, now what?*
Also, what of the fact that gun deaths in the UK are 40x lower than those in the US? Shouldn’t the inverse be true for your claim that more guns=fewer gun deaths?
You’re destroying your own arguments, muppet.
The total crime rate in the UK stands at a steady 85/1000, against 80/1000 in UtopiaStan .
Total crime in the last twelve months is down in England and Wales (by 4.2%) , when measured against the previous twelve months. Violent crimes (against the person) are actually down by 7.2% for that same period. That’s despite last summer’s unrest. Homicide is at it’s lowest in 30 years.
Of the ten categories of crime, only one showed an increase, and that was ‘other theft’ (which excludes burglary, robbery, and car theft). That’s almost certainly due to the looting during the riots.
*Poor shitweasel. Poor, scary, gun-frotting shitweasel. Correlation does not imply causation, so luckily for you, even if your lie about stricter gun control leading to murder and mayhem in the UK was true, nobody would be blaming it on the rate of gun ownership. Just as well really, because given the boom in ownership rates, you’d have looked like a right divvy.
I’m with lofgren and DC, it’s people like you who make all gun owners seem unhinged.
Nathaniel Frein:
July 19th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Eric:
Thanks for the assist but this is why I shouldn’t have posted sleep deprived. I took a nap, had some caffeine and re-read what I posted.
And by and large I’m an idiot. I had a worse grasp of the initial situation than I thought I did. Instead of stopping after my initial comment and recanting, I continued to argue a bad position. I’d like to think that my actual position (which I represented poorly) is closer to what lofgren much more eloquently states.
I do have one thing to say:
Democommie: If it wasn’t made clear to you, the website you linked was seven years old, made by a few friends who thought we could write. I’m not seeing what a stupid vampire hunter story with magic and werewolves and some stargate sg-1 asshattery has to do with “gun posturing” nor do I accept your comment about my friend. He died because he shot himself in Iraq because his girlfriend left him while he was deployed.
democommie:
July 19th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
“Notice how you present a fairly sane and rational argument free of anger, cursing, invective or ad hominem attacks but the other side doesn’t feel any need to respond in kind. Instead they go after you with both barrels(haha).”
And this would be why people like EricHoug are considered to be intelligent and, at the same time, indignorant.
Frein’s a fucking sockpuppet who has NEVER placed a comment on a thread on this blog. Suddenly he shows up in the middle of a thread that has evolved into a discussion about a cowardly murderer (and that’s what Zimmerman is, regardless the “legal” outcome) and presents the same spate of thoroughly debunked “arguments” that have put forward by the NRA and its useful idiots for the last decade or two.
Great Britain’s “violent crime rate”, btw, includes crimes classified as violent by them, but not U.S. authorities.
“So cite something that debunks me.’
Sorry, Nate, honey; it is imcumbent upon he who is asked FIRST to do some of that citation stuff. You can look back up thread (or the guy who has his hand up your ass can do it for you) and offer the citations to support those fucking braindead assertions you’ve made in this thread. “Statistics” gleaned from the likes of John Lott and other NRA shills are not acceptable. But, please, get some genuine, peer reviewed studies that support your idiocy and let us have a look. In the meantime, why don’t you go play dungeons and dragons or whatever the fuck jerk-off fantasy you engage in between shifts in your mom’s basement?
Nathaniel Frein:
July 19th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Are you, um, done with your rage bukkakke?
democommie:
July 19th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
“I’d like to think that my actual position (which I represented poorly) is closer to what lofgren much more eloquently states.”
Then say, “Gee, on reflection, I’m a complete idiot who’s saying shit without thinking about it.”. Then, build a case that doesn’t rely on steaming piles of shit for “evidence”. It’s pretty obvious that you have NO fucking idea what you’re talking about.
“I do have one thing to say:
Democommie: If it wasn’t made clear to you, the website you linked was seven years old, made by a few friends who thought we could write.* I’m not seeing what a stupid vampire hunter story with magic and werewolves and some stargate sg-1 asshattery has to do with “gun posturing” nor do I accept your comment about my friend.”
“He died because he shot himself in Iraq because his girlfriend left him while he was deployed.”
And you want everybody to be armed; WTF is wrong with you?
* Stick to the fantasy and leave the guns at home–or melt them down; people like you, I especially distruts with firearms.
erichoug:
July 19th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Case in point, see #92
democommie:
July 19th, 2012 at 3:30 pm
@95;
When the sockpuppet can make logical, defensible comments he will stop being treated like a sockpuppet.
erichoug:
July 19th, 2012 at 4:20 pm
@#96 The pro gun side has already won this argument. Maybe it isn’t him who is being illogical or in-defensible.
katie:
July 19th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
People may wank on as much as they like about the game theory of gun ownership, but here’s the thing. Empirically, banning or tightly controlling the ownership of guns results in less gun crime, while not regulating the ownership of guns results in more gun crime. If you must try to replay the scene, consider this:
- Neither Zimmerman nor Martin have guns. They have a big ole fist fight and neither one of them is dead or in jail.
- Zimmerman still has a gun. He shoots Martin, and is immediately apprehended, because gun possession is a crime.
- Both Zimmerman and Martin have guns. Zimmerman is still a hotheaded idiot, but his reflexes are a little faster than Martin’s Zimmerman shoots Martin and exactly what did happen, happens.
See? No matter what your little prisoner’s dilemma grid says, there’s no actual evidence that everyone packing results in less crime. You can tell that by the way that gangsters shoot each other despite their mutual gun ownership.
katie:
July 19th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
Nathaniel Frein @80,
Okay. How about the fact that Britain has experienced a steady rise in violent crime since adopting stricter gun control laws?
How about the fact that Great Britain has a quarter the intentional homicide rate of the US?
zmidponk:
July 19th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
No Light #90:
Actually, what’s even funnier than that is that the claim of ‘rising violent crime figures in the UK’ is just plain wrong. Official police figures show that crime figures jumped upwards, but that’s mainly because what was defined as ‘violent crime’ changed. Other sources, like the British Crime Survey, show a consistent downward trend in violent crime after the tighter gun laws, which started off much tighter than any in the US anyway. You can see this in the official UK Home Office figures here:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/hosb1011/hosb1011?view=Binary
Most interesting in that is the graph on page 63, which shows a clear decrease in crimes involving firearms between 2001 and when that report was made in July last year.
erichoug:
July 19th, 2012 at 5:17 pm
You’re over simplifying. Russia has more than double the murders of the US and they have gun control. Also, you don’t mention the fact that England’s gun ban had no effect on their overall homocide rate.
I’m curious why Wiki has murder rates for 2010 for most of the countries but only 2000 for UK, that one deserves further incestigation.
lofgren:
July 19th, 2012 at 6:32 pm
I missed this earlier but for what it’s worth I agree with you. I think that there is a faction of Americans who reflexively call for more gun control following a gun crime, but aren’t really clear what laws would have prevented this. Concealed carry laws have not been linked to increases in crime, and I agree that Zimmerman would like have carried his gun even if it was technically legal. Getting his hands on a gun if it was actually illegal for him to own one at all is another story. I couldn’t guess what Zimmerman, in particular, would do. But it’s not clear what would be an appropriate restriction on gun ownership that would have caught somebody like Zimmerman. He wasn’t a felon, so far as I know, and if he was then he already would have been prevented from owning a gun. A waiting period wouldn’t have helped. Zimmerman just didn’t set off any of the alarm bells that would generally prevent people from having guns. If somebody says there should be stricter gun control laws as a result of the Martin case, they really need to be specific as to how the hypothetical law would prevent Zimmerman from getting a gun.
The fact is most people who aren’t felons can get a gun. Gun laws are not that restrictive. You have to take a class and pass some tests, just like driving a car, and you can’t be a felon, etc., but most people who want a gun can get one. In fact part of the reason that concealed carry laws don’t seem to lead to significant uptick in crime, at least by those authorized to carry them, is that there really are so few of them. Less than a million in Florida, despite the fact that many millions could hypothetically acquire them.
The stand your ground law is gun-related but not strictly a gun law. As far as I know, neither Zimmerman nor Martin was even aware of its existence. If it does allow Zimmerman to avoid penalties for his actions, then I think that would be a miscarriage of justice. However I doubt that the original framers intended it to allow somebody to stalk and kill a person and get away with it just because the target, fearing for his life, fought back. I do believe the law was intended to protect the Martins of the world, alone and afraid (or angry, or both) as a mysterious man hunts them. I still don’t think I agree with it – really there was no point in the entire situation where it sounds to me that deadly force was warranted, and based on the existing evidence it appears that Martin would have been protected under self-defense laws even in non-stand-your-ground states, as he first attempted to evade Zimmerman and thus extricate himself from the dangerous situation, before resorting to violence.
katie:
July 20th, 2012 at 7:47 am
Yes, erichoug @101, I was oversimplifying – the rate of intentional homicide committed with a firearm in the UK is actually 40 times lower than in the US, as compared to the general rate of intentional homicide, which is only four times lower. I was trying to be nice. Here’s some statistics for you, from 2009, in case this proves to be too difficult to understand.
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/Homicide/Homicides_by_firearms.xls
democommie:
July 20th, 2012 at 8:09 am
natty friedbrain:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57476379/mass-shooting-at-batman-screening-in-denver-suburb-aurora-colorado/
Yes, it would have been so much better if all of the theatergoers had been armed–Fuck you and your asshole gunzloonz palz. You and your friends indignorance in the face of mountains of data about the likelihood of increased access to gunz leading to this sort of insanity is a major factor in the ease with which crazy motherfuckers obtain weapons. Piss and moan about your second amendment rights to the over 5o people shot or to their survivors. Maybe you can arrange for the Denver chapter of FFUGO’s*n to provide an armed honor guard for the at least 12 dead in shooting.
“@#96 The pro gun side has already won this argument. Maybe it isn’t him who is being illogical or in-defensible.”.
Right, cuz’ nothin’ sez “I’M protecting my 2nd Amendment rights!” like shooting 60 or more people in a crowded movie theater.
Fuck snark, you and your gunzloonz friends are fucking insane.
* Fuckheads For Unlimited Gunz Ownership
Marcus Ranum:
July 20th, 2012 at 9:35 am
Geraldo who?
Marcus Ranum:
July 20th, 2012 at 10:00 am
How about the fact that Great Britain has a quarter the intentional homicide rate of the US?
These kind of demographic arguments are pointless because you can spin them any way you want them.
Here’s another observation: millions of guns sold into private hands in the US every year, gun crime rates have been consistently dropping since the 1980s. If the premise is that “more guns = more crimes” that’s conclusively disproved.
What we do notice is that violent crime tends to rise and fall based on the economy. One might hypothesize that having a sense of economic despair or desparation makes some people snap, and when they do, a gun is a useful tool for them. But it’s obvious that the availability/non-availability of that tool is of vanishingly small importance compared to other factors. So we should worry about those other factors (mental health and economic security)
dingojack:
July 20th, 2012 at 10:53 am
Marcus –
Without a gun you can’t commit a gun crime, so supply is the only factor.
As posted earlier in the UK the tightening of gun access laws seems to have been followed by a continual downward trend in violent crime. IF crime rates follow the economic up and down turns then the UK’s economy must have been consistently booming since tightening their gun laws.
Perhaps that’s a way America could stimulate their sluggish economy.
Forget jobs – reduce access to guns!
@@
—
I read somewhere (I wish I could remember where) that there three ways to reduce gun crimes:
(a) spread the wealth more evenly or
(b) reduce the access to guns or
(c) both
In an ideal world we could have equitable distribution of wealth and few guns, the safest possible option… (in an ideal world)
:( Dingo
democommie:
July 20th, 2012 at 1:15 pm
dingojack:
But, but, the, erm, uh, the market should control it. Y’know teh gunz flow out to the scaredycatz, teh money flows into the coffers of the NRA and the arms manufacturers–never a problem–you can’t explain THAT and shut up too, that’s why.
Marcus Ranum:
GUNZ are NOT the problem. EASY ACCESS to gunz in almost every U.S. state (even where I live in NY–with the exception of handgunz)–especially by the emotionally unstable or mentally deficient members of society IS the problem.
The reiKKKwing of MurKKKa loves to make the argument that anyone who is for some form of reasonable regulation of firearms is ANTI-GUN. It’s the same sort of hysterical, histrionic hypocrisy that is echoed by their brethren in the “Right to Life (right up until you’re actually born)” movements equating “Pro-choice” with “Wants to kill teh babeez!”. And it’s got exactly as much do to with facts.
I have no issue with the millions of people in this country who own firearms and use them properly. I disagree with the notion that ANYONE should be allowed to own ANY GUN that they can afford to buy.
Guns don’t massaceres the innocent, KKKrazzee motherfuckers with gunz massacere the innocents.
This:
http://www.rmgo.org/gun-law-faqs/
links to a Colorado gun rights organizations webpage. According to the information there it’s not only legal to own any weapons, sans permits or regulation, in the state–it’s illegal for cities and towns to require otherwise.
It would just be another of those laughable ironies of reiKKKwing rhetoric that those same folks who laud “local rule” when it suits them are dead set against it when a city, say Denver, might want to make it a little more difficult for people to buy an arsenal to commit mass murder–if it wasn’t so tragic.
The blood of the victims of this latest “unforseeable tragedy” is on the hands of the shooter, the fucking idiot gunzloonz boosters who consider their fetish to have more value than the safety of the general population and the pandering pieces of shit who encourage them to garner a few more votes–AND the gutless fucks who sit on their hands instead of speaking out in the legislatures.