Gun Control Equates To No Guns, Like The Drug War Equates to No Drugs

He has been caught driving with a suspended license, and probably going to spend a night in jail. Are you trying to imply that him being caught lying is going to give them a warrant to search his house?

OK.....so we amend my statement of MAYBE he will spend a night in jail, to PROBABLY going to spend a night in jail. Lets even take it one step further and say spends a weekend in jail. I am so glad we cleared that up.

How is it that you are rationalizing that discovering a lie equates to his "interests" being found out? This is a guy that had the REALLY bad fortune of being pulled over on his one trip to buy a gun, and NOT in the midst of going on his planned upcoming rampage. His car is not full of explosives and other damning material.

If you need to reference "Rational Actor Theory", in order to understand that people have a reason for what they do, I am not so sure you are qualified to be having this discussion.

As far as the cost being high, I think you have lost sight of perspective. Yes that cost is high to you or I, because spending a night in jail would be a calamity. To someone sincerely about to go on a murderous rampage however, a night in jail is so infinitesimally small in comparison to the risk he is about to take, it doesn't even measure a blip on the radar. As such, one cannot credibly argue that this slightly added risk is what is going to stop a person from going on a murderous rampage. If a person doesn't fear life in prison or perhaps the death penalty, they surely are not going to fear a night or weekend in jail.

Could be anything. Maybe was driving to the store to get some beer. Maybe was going to have sex with his mistress. Maybe he was going to a friends house. Maybe he was going to buy drugs. Maybe he was going to go buy a gun. The possibilities are endless. Unless he has evidence of his journey in the car, the police are not going to know anything other than perhaps knowing that he is lying. Knowledge of him lying doesn't mean they can or would even want to get warrants to search his house.

You seem to not understand the irrefutable concept that you can no more keep drugs out of the hands of someone wanting to do drugs, than you can keep a gun out of the hands of a criminal with nefarious intent. Just as with the drug war, you can throw up a few more impediments if you so choose, but the reality is you cannot keep either item out of the hands of someone intent on getting it. Someone that is strong willed enough to go on a murderous rampage despite all the risks, is certainly motivated enough to push through whatever small impediment you put up with a gun law. I realize you are trying to imply that a traffic stop on someone with a suspended license may just uncover their plot, but that is truly a very far reach. Not to mention that I do not recall any of the recent mass shooters having a suspended license, which sort of renders this tangent that we have spent far too much time on, to be wholly moot.

The point is that bringing up tiny incremental "costs of committing the crime" is an exercise in futility, and lacking in any sense of perspective. The example you gave about a locked bedroom door stopping a murderer was therefore silly, so I merely threw in a couple other silly examples of increasing the "costs of committing the crime". Sometimes the best way to demonstrate absurdity is by being absurd.

 

our government has been successful in curbing 1% of the illegal drug market.. sure fewer people would own guns if they were illegal, but it would be the law abiding citizens that are disarmed

 

it would only make it harder for honest people to get a gun

 

No. Where did you get a warrant from? That makes no sense. Let's assume he goes free, how is he getting home? He can't drive home, and any friend will increase the costs of committing a crime. Or what about paying off fines and bond? That's less money that can go to buying a gun.

Good thing we did, now you can start explaining why a person who wanted to commit a crime now has to wait longer to commit that crime. Then also explain that now he's made himself a target for police will be able to drive without being detected. They're going to be on the lookout for him now, the police have a occupational reason to look out for the car and Homer, so the costs of the crime have increased. Or what if the car gets impounded? The costs have gone up again.

The lie itself is irrelevant, it is why he lied that matters. His lie gets caught, so the police have to ask why did he lie. That is where his interests are found out.

I reference it because I don't think you understand it. It's not just a reason but a rational reason. Why I think you don't understand exactly what the theory is saying, is best explained in the next part of the answer.

To him, jail time might be small, but in the grand scheme of things, that has increased the cost of the crime. Not the jail time, but the other associated costs of it as well. If he needs the element of surprise then how is going to get that if the police are looking out for him? He would have to do something that would drop him off their radar, like bike. He can bike, but that takes time and energy, thus increasing the costs of committing the crime. It's also going to be harder to hide any larger weapons. Not to mention that the police are going to be looking out for him, and his ability to move are restricted. The costs have gone up considerably.

Funny you should mention drugs. If he was carrying cash he could have lost all of it due to Civil forfeiture. But that is neither here nor there. The possibilities are endless. That doesn't mean that it can be whittled down to a more likely solution. Homer can still bike 10 miles, so there's good chances that he could still buy beer or meet up with a mistress. It's reasonable to believe that there is a store that sells beer within a 10 mile radius or a moving their secret moving place to someplace 20 miles away (spending the night together). If Homer wanted drugs, then there would have been signs of drug usage when the police pulled him over. Guns make sense in this case. He was heading towards a place that sells guns and he currently lives in a place that doesn't.

How much does it cost to transport a bag of weed across the border? It's not cheap. A $5 bag in Canada will cost $30 in the US. This shows that the theory is correct. So why hasn't drug usage really decreased? For starters, $30 isn't that much money. The consumers can pay for it. In other words, even though the costs have gone up, they haven't gone up enough. But a gun is a lot more expensive. It requires skilled labor to make it, manufacture it, plus the bullets, any "accessories" etc. Then add in illegal shipping costs, a $1000 gun will sell for $10,000. The numbers are exaggerated but the point is made.

You're telling me that locking a door is silly? Here's the second reason why I don't think you understand Rational Actor theory. There are all sorts of reasons why a person does something. So crime prevention is just one reason out of hundreds. What if the homeowner wanted to sell his house? Then he would do something the market wants more, not something that was in his own personal interest.

 

Just as we aren't going to throw out the concept of requiring "prescriptions" for drugs (despite the "drug war"); we aren't going to have people throw out ALL guns. Still, it is both reasonable and prudent to 'prescribe' and enforce laws which can/will save lives and generally keep the American public safer.

We don't need to go to abject extremes in anything.

 

We already have strict gun laws in certain parts of the country, so did/has that helped save lives by lowering violent crime statistics below areas where firearms are not nearly as restricted?

 

LOL...At first glance, I am tempted to go point by point, refuting every shred of nonsensical reasoning that you have put forth in your mini book, but then I realized that would be giving this entire strawman far more credence than it deserves. For crying out loud, we are talking about whether or not outlawing guns would logically keep a gun out of the hands of someone planning a mass shooting. As with drugs, legality, or lack thereof , doesn't have an impact on an individuals ability to possess what they desire. You can sit there and make up a fictional scenario where a would be gunman has lost his drivers license, gets pulled over while going to buy the gun ( odds wise a very unlikely scenario), and he magically spills the beans to the cops because he was caught lying, thus exposing his plot. Conversely, I can make up a scenario where he gets pulled over by the cops, spends a night in jail, gets so mad at society that he decides to up the ante, and instead of going to shoot up a church he buys several more guns and decides to go shoot up outside a football stadium, killing hundreds as opposed to 8 or 10. Or we could say that since he had to go to some shady character to get the gun, perhaps that shady character gives him a few tips on how to use hollow point ammunition so as to maximize his kill ratio, and that shady character just happens to also sell hollow point ammunition. Of course all 3 of those scenarios are made up whole cloth, and while all 3 of them are marginally plausible, they do not really speak to the issue of whether or not outlawing guns would keep a gun out of the hands of a person planning a mass shooting.

The fact remains that illegality of firearms, would have virtually no bearing on any individuals ultimate ability to possess a gun if they have a nefarious intent. Your cute little fictional scenario aside, that fact remains undeniable.

 

Most people who support gun control do not want to get rid of guns. I completely support gun ownership for self/home defense and hunting/sports shooting. However, I also support common sense regulations, such as criminal and mental health background checks, the abolishment of the gun show exemption to background checks and waiting periods, the prohibition of multi-burst and automatical rifles, and any other firearms usuable only on combat, being sold to or owned by civilians, and a ban on things like silencers, armor peircing rounds etc, which have no use outside of combat.

 

So how does he do that? This is the part that you're forgetting, he has to get the guns, he has to do the research on his target, he has to know so much before it can even be done. That is what Rational Actor Theory says to do. Increase the costs of committing the crime and it won't be done because fewer and fewer people will be able to afford to do it.

You have $1. The thing you want to buy costs $2. You can't buy it. You don't have the item. All the demand in the world won't change the fact that you can't afford it.

 

There is no special exemption for gun shows.

You can buy a machine gun or 'multi-burst' rifle made before 1986 but few can afford the price tag and I doubt criminals will do the following:

Pay a tax of $200
Fill out a lengthy application to register your gun with the federal government
Submit photographs
Submit passport photos
Get your chief law enforcement official to sign your application
Wait for the results of your background check to come back

Silencers were used for hunting long before having to register them the same as machine guns.

 

In my view, in order to own automatic weapons, you should either

1; Be in the military, or tactical law enforcement groups, such as S.W.A.T.

or

2; Be in a licensed private security firm, with proper permits.

No private individual should be allowed to own automatic weapons for personal use.

 

Since privately owned and very expensive automatic weapons are not used in crimes, what is the problem?

 

They often are used in crimes though. Many black market weapons are ones bought by individuals with legal permits and then sold under the table to criminals and reported as stolen.

 

Specifically why do you believe such should be the case?

 

Often? Name the last time an automatic weapon was used in a crime. Here I will show you how much of a problem it is.

Since 1934, there appear to have been at least two homicides committed with legally owned automatic weapons. One was a murder committed by a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a civilian). On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32, used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman. Patrolman Waller pleaded guilty in 1990, and he and an accomplice were sentenced to 18 years in prison. The 1986 'ban' on sales of new machine guns does not apply to purchases by law enforcement or government agencies.

 

why not? automatic weapon fire is a lot less effective than firing single shot, especially if you are untrained. Automatic weapons are good for suppression and breaking up large troop formations. The base of fire element in a squad attack will use any attached machine guns to keep the enemies heads down while the flanking element will maneuvre to the objective more safely because the machine guns have them covered. firing an assault rifle on auto is a great way to spend a fortune on ammunition. More so for a belted machine gun. Just watch iraqis attempting to fight on the news for how ineffective automatic weapons can be when not used properly.

no, for efficient killing, semi automatic is the way to go.

 

I know what a car is and I know what it takes to own and operate one...

 

Kind of weird then that we don't do something like that in the US.

 

and yet far more people die from car accidents and homicides than they do from guns every year. No more regulations are needed for guns. there are more than enough already.

 

There are more cars than guns and there would be even more fatalities if it were not for the regulations and restrictions. A no brainer really.

Oh yeah and then there are these driving restrictions...

Distracted Driving Laws
June 2015
This chart outlines state distracted driving laws. Some localities have additional regulations. Enforcement type is shown in parenthesis
http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/cellphone_laws.html

 

What other regulations do you want?? And how would they keep bad guys from getting guns when they don't get guns legally anyway?

 

Because feelings....

 

I am forgetting or ignoring absolutely nothing. He does "that", the same way he does currently. To use your words, he has to get the gun, do the research on his target, and know whatever it is that he has to know to successfully pull off his plan. The only difference is how he gets the gun, and with the example of illegal drugs as a reasonable guide, he is going to be able to easily obtain whatever he wants on the black market, perhaps with the exception that he has a few less regulations to worry about versus when guns were legal.

As far as the Rational Actor Theory.....Enough already, it espouses what is otherwise common sense. If you need the Rational Actor Theory in order to apply common sense, then you are in way over your head. We get it, you probably just took a 100 level sociology class ( maybe even a 200 level), spent a day or two discussing it in class, and maybe even had a half page case study on your midterm. This doesn't give you a special ability to analyze situations. It gives sociologists the ability to formalize a way of explaining a common sense topic in a sociology study, and you were merely given an elementary exposure to the concept. What you don't realize is that the true crux of this concept is the ability to adequately assess and apply the input variables into the models, which is the true heart of our debate. Because you studied this for a few days in class doesn't really have any bearing on this debate. I too was once in college, and I too at one time thought throwing around a fancy term gave me some level of credibility. With time, I matured and realized that the real world isn't anything like the black and white world of academia, rather it is many shades of grey. Your ability to predict behavior is a function of life experience and flat out common sense, neither of which come through a brief exposure to a sociological concept that is nothing more than a broad generalization.

I suspect at some point in your life, you too will giggle just a bit when you encounter a college student that has learned a few vocab terms and all of a sudden think they have the keys to the kingdom of life.

There could potentially be some truth to the difference in price from a black market gun versus a legal gun. You give the example of drugs inflated price, and then have made claims of black market guns therefore being double or even ten times the legal price. I am not entirely sure that assumption is true. I could point to black market tobacco, and how much lower it is versus legal tobacco because of less federal regulation. I don't know all the dynamics of black market guns, nor do I suspect that you do, but the argument could be made both ways for it rising or lowering in price. I do know that right now a Saturday Night Special can often be found for around $150, which is far below the legal price, and in other instances guns are currently now traded for as little as a bag of heroin, which is even cheaper.

Whether it is a bit higher or a bit lower, in regards to a mass shooter, I am not even sure it is logical to assume that price is that big of a barrier one way or the other. It seems to me that the overwhelming majority of mass shooters plan on also committing suicide, so liquidating all of their belongings would NOT be a hardship in order to carry out their plan. In my memory at least, it seems like the overwhelming majority of mass shooters have been middle to upper middle class, and surely they could scrounge up enough for a gun, especially if they have no worry about tomorrow.

 

Yet you make it sound like it's as easy as walking into a store. How is he going to get access to this black market? How can he trust his supplier? Will the police be on the look out for that gun? Committing a crime draws attention to a person, especially for his purposes. Remember buying a gun is not like a bag of weed. The chances of him getting caught have gone up, thus the costs of the crime have gone up.

Personal insulting is usually a sign that someone doesn't have an argument anymore. Given the lack of response, it's leaning towards that conclusion. Also,
http://instructional1.calstatela.edu/tclim/F02_courses/structuralism_notes.pdf
https://www.opendemocracy.net/page/jens-martin-eriksen/culturalism-culture-as-political-ideology

This is not the only way of looking at the world. I know what I'm talking about.

So what do you think I have been doing? I gave you a perfectly reasonable model and then we started to increase the costs of committing the crime. In fact, I'm actually taking the taking the Rationalists approach to dealing with Terrorism as the source of my argument.

I was in college once too, now I'm on break. Your lack of response doesn't invalidate my argument. Tell me, if the car gets impounded how is Homer going to get the gun? What about bond money? If he pays bond then that's less money to go into buying a gun. That's increasing the costs of the crime, my theory works.

You mean as you squirm now?

If I understand what you're saying, then that goes into my argument perfectly. If there is less government regulations surrounding black market tobacco, then the costs of buying it are lower. That fits into exactly what I have been saying. But if you want an example of guns increasing in cost after gun regulations here's one:
"Criminals in Australia apparently are also feeling the cost of times. A Senate inquiry into illicit guns heard last Monday that criminals now share guns and ammunitions because buying their own has gone impractical.

Prices of semi-automatic handguns, so-called weapons of choice of underworld characters, from a previous price tag of $2,000 to $4,000 have gone up to over $15,000 in the past two years."
http://www.ibtimes.com.au/cost-ille...rocketed-criminals-now-do-gun-sharing-1378871

I shouldn't have to even go this far. This makes sense. If a resource while demand stays the same then it's going to go up in cost.

If the assets are liquidated then where would he live? It's not price at that point it's his survival until he gets to the shooting. He still needs to have the basic necessities to survive. His mind is going to be fixated on the shooting, selling the house would be a distraction to that.

 

Rather than continuing to respond to the same concept of various hypotheticals surrounding examples that you say increase the cost of committing the crime, lets break this down to the simplest and most elemental difference. All factors of planning, motive, etc are entirely identical, except for the one factor of how do they obtain the gun. I realize you are putting forth the concept of increasing the cost of committing the crime, so lets examine that concept a bit more in depth, and drop the silly hypotheticals with him having a suspended license etc.

My contention from the beginning has been that making guns illegal will no more keep guns out of the hands of a criminal with nefarious intent, than making drugs illegal keeps drugs out of the hands of a willing user. Can we sit here and come up with scenarios where drugs being illegal temporarily thwarts a person from getting drugs?.....Absolutely. The fact remains, if a person wants drugs, they are going to get them. Can we sit here and come up with scenarios where guns being illegal will temporarily thwart them from getting a gun?....Absolutely. The fact remains, if a person wants a gun, they are going to get one.

Lets go one step further, and take into account the concept you are pushing regarding increasing the cost of committing the crime. With drugs, the prospect of being arrested may in fact keep some from going down that path. Many would be drug users are pretty regular people, and the cost of spending a night in jail is more than they are willing to risk. In that instance, the cost of committing the crime is more than they are willing to pay. With a mass shooter they have made the calculation that the "costs" of life in prison or the death penalty, and the sheer lack of humanity involved, are NOT too great a price to pay to achieve their aims. With that being the case, it is not credible to think that the relatively minor added "cost" that exist regarding having to go to the black market to obtain their gun is going to therefore dissuade them. To break this principle down into simple quantifiable terms...If a person is wanting an ice cream cone, he may be willing to drive 2 miles to go get one. If the nearest ice cream cone was 10 miles away, he probably is not going to do so, because the ice cream cone simply isn't that important to him. On the other hand, if a person is looking for a 1967 corvette, he may be willing to drive hundreds of miles to purchase one, because it is that important to him. If a person is willing to drive 700 miles for a Corvette, it is not all that credible to say if we make that 750 miles, he is going to therefore not make that purchase. While it is true that there likely is an increase in mileage that may stop him from going ( like 1500 miles), a relatively small increase is not going to stop him. The difference in "cost" associated with purchasing a gun on black market versus legal, are much more in line with a 50 mile increase versus an 800 mile increase. All you have done on this thread is talk about the 50 mile increase, all the while deluding yourself into thinking an additional 50 miles is going to be the difference maker in their decision.A person about to embark upon a mass killing and probably committing suicide in the process, is MUCH more akin to the guy wanting the corvette versus the guy wanting the ice cream. They have already forsaken such great "costs" in their decision making process, and a few extra miles are not credibly going to dissuade them. The extra "cost" that you are referring to are comparatively so minor in regards to the other "costs", that they hardly warrant a mention.

Which takes me to your other point about actual cost of the gun on the black market. Lets be very clear, me acknowledging that the price may in fact be a bit higher, is in no manner shape or form an example of me "squirming", rather it is an example of me being fair minded, and acknowledging one tiny part of your argument that MAY have some merit if in fact that person is unable to produce the funds necessary to purchase one. It is funny in this room in that a legitimate exchange of ideas is theoretically the goal, but all too often when someone actually makes a concession to what the other person is saying, the other person ( in this case you), then turns around and gloats that you are "squirming". You produce an article from Australia that refers to a certain type of gun being $15k on the black market, and presumably you are implying that a black market gun is therefore unattainable for a sizeable group of people. On the other hand, it is common knowledge that Saturday Night Specials are currently very cheap in todays black market, and often times these guns are traded for a fix of drugs. With both of those situations in mind, I am not sure that it is entirely clear whether or not the price of black market guns is therefore higher or lower. With the number of illegal guns in circulation already being astronomically high, I am not sure that it is credible to make the claim that guns being illegal will therefore send the price through the roof. If one wants the latest and greatest new gun it would probably be rather high ( it already is in the legal market), but a run of the mill used illegal gun probably wouldn't increase in price much if at all. In regards to you saying "If there is less government regulations surrounding black market tobacco, then the costs of buying it are lower. That fits into exactly what I have been saying", you are off the mark, because it doesn't fit in with what you have been saying at all. Yes there are less regulations in black market tobacco versus legal tobacco, which puts downward pressure on their price. There are also less regulations in black market guns versus legal guns, which also puts downward pressure on their price. Rather than fitting into what you are saying, it directly contradicts what you are saying. At any rate, whichever direction large scale gun black markets would go in terms of price, it is safe to say it will not exceed the price of what criminals are capable of paying. Price is determined by supply and demand, and with criminals being the demand, the price will not settle in at a point where criminals as a whole cannot attain them. Criminals by in large aren't exactly the wealthy within our society.

Lastly, I am not sure that you understand what constitutes a "personal insult". At no time have I insulted you, rather I have focused specifically on your argument and tactics. Pointing out that you have likely taken a 100 or 200 level class and now think you have the keys to the kingdom in no manner shape or form constitutes a personal insult. I suspect I may have hit a bit close to home in my analysis however, which is why you see it as a personal insult.