Are there many other rights in America which need a political lobbyist group such as the NRA which puts in millions of dollars towards pro advertising and promotion?
According to Open Secrets the NRA lobbying side ranks number 174 in spending. So there are 173 organizations that feel a need to spend more on lobbying. I am not sure what their advertising budget is. NRA summary Top spenders of 2013
Since it is so easy to get guns in the US, how easy is it to get hollow points, armor piercing rounds and any other ammunition that I see glorified in my cathartic video games?
The reason someone would want their defense pistol loaded with hollow points is so if they do have to shoot someone, the bullet does not go through their target, and into some bystander 50 feet away.
I'm specifying my question towards protection of rights. Isn't that what the NRA does - protect the 2nd amendment (which is interpreted as a right to own guns) while also promoting gun ownership, responsible gun handling and gun sports?
Doesn't the hollowpoint bullet also do the maximum possible damage due to the mushrooming nature produced once inside the body?
Why do I carry it? To shoot the person who tries to hurt me. If someone tries to take my things i will attempt to stop them. If they then hurt me in order to prevent me stopping them I will probably fall back on my gun.
Just so you know, I am actually horrified reading things like this. I hope I never meet you, and if I do meet you, I'd prefer either one of us just leaves the presence of the other. I think your brain is fucked up. It might not be your fault, but I'd still prefer to never encounter people like you in real life.
@TWS - tax exempt status and owning a firearm are not analogous. You can call yourself a member of the church of Whale Sharks and no one can say you are not. However if you want to gain a special privilege for your church (tax-exempt) than you have to be recognized as a church by the government.
Where is the same found with gun ownership? If I need to ask permission to purchase a gun and I am legally prohibited from making my own gun where is the window where I can exercise this right without gaining government permission?
Rym-suppose in a stroke of unheralded productivity, congress passes all your requests tomorrow. Furthermore, you turn out to be right in every aspect. Now what do we do in the diamond age?
I'm specifying my question towards protection of rights. Isn't that what the NRA does - protect the 2nd amendment (which is interpreted as a right to own guns) while also promoting gun ownership, responsible gun handling and gun sports?
That's what they claim to do. In actuality, they pretty much are the gun manufacturer industry's primary lobbying arm and their main goal is to prevent any sort of liability laws against gun manufacturers than actually promote the right to bear arms.
Why do I carry it? To shoot the person who tries to hurt me. If someone tries to take my things i will attempt to stop them. If they then hurt me in order to prevent me stopping them I will probably fall back on my gun. The gun is the best compromise I have. Swords take skill. Knives are even harder to use properly and take training. Gun's take the least training and are the most effective at what they are designed to do. Kill things.
Don't you see the problem here? The goal isn't to kill things, it's protection. Sure, maybe other options like tasers and pepper spray simply aren't good enough (although I'd like to see you elaborate on why), and there are simply no reliable options other than guns. However, if that is so, then surely you can see that this situation is very far from ideal, and that the attitude people have towards guns is most definitely not helping here?
All the debate here is great, but in the end I do believe in my right to defend myself and others to the point of taking another human life to do so.
What's the threshold where taking a life becomes OK? It's an important question.
There are also two important parts to the question - what is the right thing to do, and what ought to be legal? The former question is relatively strict, but the law cannot (and should not) restrict you quite so severely.
However, I do think many U.S. states go way too far in this, and that's coupled with an extremely problematic societal view that it's OK to shoot someone in far too broad a range of circumstances.
Rym: If I believed the ATF and the local government wouldn't use registration information as an eventual tool for confiscation I'd have no problem with national registration and tracking.
I find the whole "registration leads to confiscation" argument very weak indeed, personally. It does enable confiscation, but I think you should have more confidence in your society.
With the Second Amendment, and the extent to which people are attached to their guns, confiscation is simply not a realistic concern for a long time yet. The reason some people do call for confiscation is just because the number of people dying is so high, and they desperately want to do something about it. In the long run, sticking to the status quo is a doomed strategy with regards to protecting your gun ownership. The best way for you to do that is, as a society, to do far, far more about the amount of violence and the number of gun deaths than you are now.
There are plenty of things the U.S. can do to improve the situation that have nothing at all to do with guns, but avoiding or ignoring those improvements only makes the pressure against guns build up. There are also reasonable measures to be taken with regards to gun control.
@LOC - there is a belief that the non-gun fixes are being specifically avoided as a way to force gun control to come about. Some of those beliefs are very fringe while others (let's fix mental health so crazies don't get guns) are not.
Doesn't the hollowpoint bullet also do the maximum possible damage due to the mushrooming nature produced once inside the body?
Well maybe not maximum possible but it is certainly more. What you have to remember is it is only legally justified to shoot someone if lethal force is necessary, so it doing more damage isn't really a bad thing.
Some of those beliefs are very fringe while others (let's fix mental health so crazies don't get guns) are not.
While I don't want crazies to get guns, that could bring up a lot more issues. The more we bring mental health into into it, the more some who already have guns are less likely to get heath for fear that they will be taken away. Now these people might be fine now but given a few years without help they might end up being crazies with guns. And we also have the issue of those who have some sort of mental illness but does not impact their ability to use a gun safely. I think what we need to do is emphasize the importance of mental health as a whole rather than working even harder to keep people with mental illnesses from buying guns.
In the end, I fundamentally believe my life is worth more than the person's trying to take it from me.
I take a nuanced view on that point (I stated it a few pages back), but I do agree somewhat with this.
However, the issue I have is that many people make statements or take actions that suggest that the value they actually assign to that other person's life is almost zero (if not less than zero). Self-defense is vitally important, but when you fail to give reasonable consideration to methods that don't involve taking someone else's life you are not merely guilty of a moral failure, but also of contributing to a greater societal view that legitimizes violence.
Here's an example of exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about:
As too deadly force on self defense I think it depends on the situation. If someone were to break into my home because they were seeking food or shelter I could forgive that. If they broke into my home to cause me physical harm or to steal want items rather than need items well, that puts them much lower down on the right to life scale.
On the street the question would be,"why am I in this dangerous section of town?" If I was in a safe area than why was this dangerous person here? As above if they are robbing me because of a need rather than a want I am more likely to forgive the crime and try to help rather than hurt the perpetrator.
In both cases I am looking at the intent of the criminal and making a snap judgment as to whether or not their criminal behavior can be fixed. Same goes for most crimes.
If someone steals money because they have none it is a need based crime and it is possible to help move that person out of criminal life if they can be given an honest chance at going legit. If someone already has plenty of money and they are still stealing more than they have some sort of psychological disorder and need to either be treated for the disorder or put down if they can not or will not benefit from treatment.
First option of justice should always be rehabilitation. If rehab fails then it may just be better to remove the person from society (permanently or via incarceration.)
Steve, this is totally fucked up.
The idea that you can make a "snap judgment" about whether someone's behaviour can be fixed is totally ludicrous, and nothing more than a rationalization. Imagine saying "Your Honor, I took one look and I thought 'this one is beyond help'."
In the heat of the moment, you simply cannot expect yourself to make a reasonable judgment as to why someone is doing what they're doing. If you respond to their perceived motivations rather than their actions, you're setting yourself up to make huge errors in judgment due to your own cognitive biases.
In my view, deadly force is only acceptable when someone's life is under threat and there aren't any other options for averting that threat.
@LOC - there is a belief that the non-gun fixes are being specifically avoided as a way to force gun control to come about. Some of those beliefs are very fringe while others (let's fix mental health so crazies don't get guns) are not.
What are the mental health fixes in question, who is avoiding those fixes, and how?
As far as I can tell, the kind of people who would avoid the mental health fixes (e.g. better mental health services) are precisely the kind of people who don't want the gun control.
Besides that, while it's clearly a good idea and a step forward, the primary issue is that the majority of gun deaths have little to do with mental illness.
Now, don't get me wrong. If someone initiates real violence against me, I have zero consideration for their safety after that point.
Obviously that's totally reasonable. If it wasn't clear before, I agree with this view.
If you have a gun and someone initiates violence against you then your life is under threat. Of course, the major reason for that is your own gun, because it could be used against you. When you're in that situation already, using the gun is the right thing to do.
The critical considerations for the other person's safety come before that point. Should you have brought a gun to that situation in the first place? Could you have avoided that situation by retreating from the confrontation? If a taser would do the job just as well as the gun, shouldn't you have had one of those instead?
Now, don't get me wrong. If someone initiates real violence against me, I have zero consideration for their safety after that point.
This is what would influence my snap judgment. A home invader yelling and waving a gun around is clearly showing intent to do me harm. Someone I find scrounging through my kitchen cabinets for food and runs when they hear me moving around is not threatening my life.
There is also the factor of how much bravado vs fear is evident in their voice and actions. Regardless my life will always be worth more than the person threatening me with bodily harm.
I would do my best to resolve the situation without resorting to violence first but I would also not be afraid to use violence. I am more inclined towards violence as a solution if I am protecting people other than myself in the home (kids, wife, etc). Don't mistake my words for a violence first attitude, violence is always a last resort.
My problem with less lethal weapons is that they may end up being used more often and sooner than a firearm would simply because they are less lethal. This would lead to over use and abuse of said weapons.
If your only option is negotiate or kill hopefully you would spend more time negotiating. If your option is negotiate, kill or non-lethal incapacitation well... After a few minutes of negotiation the negotiator may just say fuck it and tase the person.
My problem with less lethal weapons is that they may end up being used more often and sooner than a firearm would simply because they are less lethal. This would lead to over use and abuse of said weapons.
If your only option is negotiate or kill hopefully you would spend more time negotiating. If your option is negotiate, kill or non-lethal incapacitation well... After a few minutes of negotiation the negotiator may just say fuck it and tase the person.
You're acting like a rational human being. However, as we've seen time and time again (and made worse by so-called "stand your ground" laws), way too many people tend to be of the "shoot first and ask questions later" school of thought.
My problem with less lethal weapons is that they may end up being used more often and sooner than a firearm would simply because they are less lethal. This would lead to over use and abuse of said weapons.
Your point ignores that the status quo involves over use and abuse of guns. Does the fact that guns are abused mean that those shouldn't be allowed?
My problem with less lethal weapons is that they may end up being used more often and sooner than a firearm would simply because they are less lethal. This would lead to over use and abuse of said weapons.
If your only option is negotiate or kill hopefully you would spend more time negotiating. If your option is negotiate, kill or non-lethal incapacitation well... After a few minutes of negotiation the negotiator may just say fuck it and tase the person.
Apart from my (previously posted) preference to see 100 people tased accidentally or inappropriately than one person shot, I feel there's a weird logical problem with this. I'm not sure how to express it though.
How about HPV vaccines for young women? It could be a comparable type of logic.
A. No vaccines! The sure solution is no sex at all! B. Vaccines! Being vaccinated will not lead to any girl having sex more, will reduce her chances of cancer, but may have a slight chance of complications.
The small chance of complications with a taser is waaaaaay better than saying "have a gun, but don't use it". Because we know, from human nature, that if someone has a gun, they will use it.
The situations aren't exactly the same, but I feel as though they are close.
Just so you know, I am actually horrified reading things like this. I hope I never meet you, and if I do meet you, I'd prefer either one of us just leaves the presence of the other. I think your brain is fucked up. It might not be your fault, but I'd still prefer to never encounter people like you in real life.
I'm sorry you feel that way Luke, but I'm not surprised. You in fact, have met me before. You encounter people like me all the time when you are in the US. I'm pretty sure you encounter people like me in Germany as well.
I'm a person who believes my life is worth more than the life of someone trying to hurt me. I don't want to hurt people, I don't go out of my way to put myself in a situation where I'll get hurt. I don't advertise my things hoping to get robbed so I can try to intervene. I don't pick fights, I only say insulting things to my friends... you get the point.
If you really don't want to even be in the same room as people like me, then you should probably never come to any event in the United States. Pissing you off or making you unhappy was a risk I took when writing out what I said. I'm not fucked in the head as you say, I just don't believe the same things as you. I think you come across naive, self centered and arrogant in your writing, but I don't believe that is who you actually are, or an accurate representation of the whole you.
Most of my searches turned up conspiracy laden results. I couldn't find a good study on the impact of taser adoption by police forces but what is evident anecdotely is that police forces with brutality problems use tasers more often than necessary and have serious problems with officers abusing the devices and using them just to make their job easier (why chase the guy you just cuffed when you can tase him? )
Several states and municipalities ban them outright but I couldn't quickly find information on the discussions that led to those bans.
Don't you see the problem here? The goal isn't to kill things, it's protection. Sure, maybe other options like tasers and pepper spray simply aren't good enough (although I'd like to see you elaborate on why), and there are simply no reliable options other than guns. However, if that is so, then surely you can see that this situation is very far from ideal, and that the attitude people have towards guns is most definitely not helping here?
I'm not going to try and argue that things are the best they can be now. I was trying to point out there are reasonable and intelligent people who do believe that guns are a useful tool for self defense. I don't have a problem complying with laws and rules that make it harder to purchase and own a gun as long as they do nor restrict me from carrying it when I want to and owning it in the first place (as long as the restrictions are not onerous.
What's the threshold where taking a life becomes OK? It's an important question. There are also two important parts to the question - what is the right thing to do, and what ought to be legal? The former question is relatively strict, but the law cannot (and should not) restrict you quite so severely.
However, I do think many U.S. states go way too far in this, and that's coupled with an extremely problematic societal view that it's OK to shoot someone in far too broad a range of circumstances.
I can't give you a black and white threshold that will apply to every situation 100 percent of the time. Even if I could I couldn't write it in a way that would stand up to any scrutiny (legally).
My threshold is essentially: I will not accept a severe beating, broken bones, etc from someone with intent to hurt me. If someone tries to do that then I want the right and tools to stop them. Legally, in my state, that is enough for me to use deadly force. I forget the actual term, but it's damage that would land you in the hospital, broken bones. Of course intent and opportunity are also required, but once they are beating you, it shows both.
I find the whole "registration leads to confiscation" argument very weak indeed, personally. It does enable confiscation, but I think you should have more confidence in your society.
With the Second Amendment, and the extent to which people are attached to their guns, confiscation is simply not a realistic concern for a long time yet. The reason some people do call for confiscation is just because the number of people dying is so high, and they desperately want to do something about it. In the long run, sticking to the status quo is a doomed strategy with regards to protecting your gun ownership. The best way for you to do that is, as a society, to do far, far more about the amount of violence and the number of gun deaths than you are now.
There are plenty of things the U.S. can do to improve the situation that have nothing at all to do with guns, but avoiding or ignoring those improvements only makes the pressure against guns build up. There are also reasonable measures to be taken with regards to gun control.
I don't believe confiscation is imminent or even likely. Who would do it? The same cops who are very pro gun ownership? Not likely.
There are some reasonable measures that can be made, I think almost none of them will have a significant impact on gun deaths. Our society needs a lot of things, I believe that the larger number of gun deaths proportionally compared to similar countries has more to do with our other issues and less to do with the guns. Even if could magically make every gun disappear I think the US would have higher murder rates that those other similar countries.
@Luke - I agree that given the choice between being shot and being tased I would much rather be tased but that is not the choice that I am worried about. My concern is that because the taser is non-lethal it will be used quicker and more often and in situations where a gun would not even be considered an option.
We have enough problems with trained police abusing and misusing tasers. Now imagine an untrained populace carrying tasers.
Since it is so easy to get guns in the US, how easy is it to get hollow points, armor piercing rounds and any other ammunition that I see glorified in my cathartic video games?
Doesn't the hollowpoint bullet also do the maximum possible damage due to the mushrooming nature produced once inside the body?
I was hoping it was an obvious troll.
Not a troll.
Hollow points can be bought at almost any gun store, or wallmart. There may be a few states with restrictions, I'm not aware of any.
Hollow points have one primary function, to mushroom and do as much damage as possible (through the physical metal bits and mostly through the cavity produced by the energy being transmitted into the body. Someone could argue that they use hollow points to prevent over penetration, but they are missing the point and the purpose of the round. They are more effective at stopping a human then fmj rounds (full metal jacket).
Tasers are legal in a lot of places and I haven't heard many stories of Tasing mishaps by civilians. I'm much more afraid of being Tased by police than some random dude.
Tasers are legal in a lot of places and I haven't heard many stories of Tasing mishaps by civilians. I'm much more afraid of being Tased by police than some random dude.
True. I also could not find evidence of pepper spray abuse except by... Police and other authority figures.
I would also rather my drunk brother in law accidentally tase me than shoot me. With my first choice being that he not be around weapons while drinking.
Tasers are expensive and difficult to get. I can't think of a single place that sells them to civilians. A quick search on ebay turns up 0 results for an actual Taser. Your most likely to get tasered by the police because they are the ones that have them. Stun guns are next to useless and are actually dangerous in that they give people a false sense of security (I grant that any weapon including a gun can do that, just because your armed doesn't mean you should just go willy nilly and do dumb things).
Pepper spray is notoriously ineffective, it's why cops like to use the Taser first.
Tasers occasionally kill people, it's why Taser quietly changed their literature from non-lethal to less than lethal. The analogy of Tasers to vaccines is fairly apt, both kill people in a very low numbers but do more good than harm.
What's the threshold where taking a life becomes OK? It's an important question. There are also two important parts to the question - what is the right thing to do, and what ought to be legal? The former question is relatively strict, but the law cannot (and should not) restrict you quite so severely.
However, I do think many U.S. states go way too far in this, and that's coupled with an extremely problematic societal view that it's OK to shoot someone in far too broad a range of circumstances.
I can't give you a black and white threshold that will apply to every situation 100 percent of the time. Even if I could I couldn't write it in a way that would stand up to any scrutiny (legally).
My threshold is essentially: I will not accept a severe beating, broken bones, etc from someone with intent to hurt me. If someone tries to do that then I want the right and tools to stop them. Legally, in my state, that is enough for me to use deadly force. I forget the actual term, but it's damage that would land you in the hospital, broken bones. Of course intent and opportunity are also required, but once they are beating you, it shows both.
If they're already beating you, then it may already be too late to use a gun, given the danger of having it used against you.
I have no issue with danger of death (or severe injury) as a necessary criterion for the use of deadly force, but I don't think that's enough. In my view, there also has to be no other way of avoiding that danger. If you could have avoided that danger without the use of deadly force but chose not to do so, you bear much of the responsibility.
Luke's response to you was relatively extreme, but I think failing to mention the importance of deadly force being a last resort is the main reason he took issue with you. You may agree with that concept, but the fact that you didn't mention it suggests that it's not very important to you, and hence suggests that the actual worth you're putting on the other person's life is quite low.
If someone wants to harm you for the sake of harming you, or simply doesn't care at all whether they harm you or not, they are a psychopath. That, however, is an unusual situation. Most criminals are not psychopaths, and most psychopaths are not criminals. Most of the time you should be able to find ways of averting the danger to yourself (or to others) that don't involve the use of deadly force.
I think that failing to mention the importance of that consideration does a lot of harm to the culture around gun violence - what Lou called the "shoot first and ask questions later" school of thought. Self-defense laws that are soft on this aspect, like the "stand your ground" laws, contribute to this mentality.
I don't believe confiscation is imminent or even likely. Who would do it? The same cops who are very pro gun ownership? Not likely.
There are some reasonable measures that can be made, I think almost none of them will have a significant impact on gun deaths. Our society needs a lot of things, I believe that the larger number of gun deaths proportionally compared to similar countries has more to do with our other issues and less to do with the guns. Even if could magically make every gun disappear I think the US would have higher murder rates that those other similar countries.
Yes, I very much agree. I think there is a culture of violence in the U.S. that wouldn't simply go away if all the guns disappeared.
However, I think gun culture is related to that greater culture of violence, so changing attitudes towards guns is part of the solution.
@Luke - I agree that given the choice between being shot and being tased I would much rather be tased but that is not the choice that I am worried about. My concern is that because the taser is non-lethal it will be used quicker and more often and in situations where a gun would not even be considered an option.
We have enough problems with trained police abusing and misusing tasers. Now imagine an untrained populace carrying tasers.
@Luke - I agree that given the choice between being shot and being tased I would much rather be tased but that is not the choice that I am worried about. My concern is that because the taser is non-lethal it will be used quicker and more often and in situations where a gun would not even be considered an option.
We have enough problems with trained police abusing and misusing tasers. Now imagine an untrained populace carrying tasers.
Now imagine an untrained populace carrying guns.
I find the two equally unsettling. Thanks to their experience with them - which is pretty much movies and TV - people think of tasers as a magical no-harm knockout device on a surprisingly frequent basis. Sure, you'd have people who didn't know how to shoot and would likely kill people, but you'd also have people using tasers willy nilly thinking they were consequence free conflict resolution. Dude mouthing off at you? Bzzt. Mate getting rowdy drunk? Bzzt. Someone said something that offends you? Bzzt. Think it would be funny? Bzzt.
Comments
Doesn't the hollowpoint bullet also do the maximum possible damage due to the mushrooming nature produced once inside the body? I was hoping it was an obvious troll.
Where is the same found with gun ownership? If I need to ask permission to purchase a gun and I am legally prohibited from making my own gun where is the window where I can exercise this right without gaining government permission?
There are also two important parts to the question - what is the right thing to do, and what ought to be legal? The former question is relatively strict, but the law cannot (and should not) restrict you quite so severely.
However, I do think many U.S. states go way too far in this, and that's coupled with an extremely problematic societal view that it's OK to shoot someone in far too broad a range of circumstances.
I find the whole "registration leads to confiscation" argument very weak indeed, personally. It does enable confiscation, but I think you should have more confidence in your society.
With the Second Amendment, and the extent to which people are attached to their guns, confiscation is simply not a realistic concern for a long time yet. The reason some people do call for confiscation is just because the number of people dying is so high, and they desperately want to do something about it. In the long run, sticking to the status quo is a doomed strategy with regards to protecting your gun ownership. The best way for you to do that is, as a society, to do far, far more about the amount of violence and the number of gun deaths than you are now.
There are plenty of things the U.S. can do to improve the situation that have nothing at all to do with guns, but avoiding or ignoring those improvements only makes the pressure against guns build up. There are also reasonable measures to be taken with regards to gun control.
However, the issue I have is that many people make statements or take actions that suggest that the value they actually assign to that other person's life is almost zero (if not less than zero). Self-defense is vitally important, but when you fail to give reasonable consideration to methods that don't involve taking someone else's life you are not merely guilty of a moral failure, but also of contributing to a greater societal view that legitimizes violence.
Here's an example of exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about: Steve, this is totally fucked up.
The idea that you can make a "snap judgment" about whether someone's behaviour can be fixed is totally ludicrous, and nothing more than a rationalization. Imagine saying "Your Honor, I took one look and I thought 'this one is beyond help'."
In the heat of the moment, you simply cannot expect yourself to make a reasonable judgment as to why someone is doing what they're doing. If you respond to their perceived motivations rather than their actions, you're setting yourself up to make huge errors in judgment due to your own cognitive biases.
In my view, deadly force is only acceptable when someone's life is under threat and there aren't any other options for averting that threat.
As far as I can tell, the kind of people who would avoid the mental health fixes (e.g. better mental health services) are precisely the kind of people who don't want the gun control.
Besides that, while it's clearly a good idea and a step forward, the primary issue is that the majority of gun deaths have little to do with mental illness.
If you have a gun and someone initiates violence against you then your life is under threat. Of course, the major reason for that is your own gun, because it could be used against you. When you're in that situation already, using the gun is the right thing to do.
The critical considerations for the other person's safety come before that point. Should you have brought a gun to that situation in the first place? Could you have avoided that situation by retreating from the confrontation? If a taser would do the job just as well as the gun, shouldn't you have had one of those instead?
There is also the factor of how much bravado vs fear is evident in their voice and actions. Regardless my life will always be worth more than the person threatening me with bodily harm.
I would do my best to resolve the situation without resorting to violence first but I would also not be afraid to use violence. I am more inclined towards violence as a solution if I am protecting people other than myself in the home (kids, wife, etc). Don't mistake my words for a violence first attitude, violence is always a last resort.
Should they simply be allowed, assuming no other changes are made to weapon laws of any kind?
If your only option is negotiate or kill hopefully you would spend more time negotiating. If your option is negotiate, kill or non-lethal incapacitation well... After a few minutes of negotiation the negotiator may just say fuck it and tase the person.
How about HPV vaccines for young women? It could be a comparable type of logic.
A. No vaccines! The sure solution is no sex at all!
B. Vaccines! Being vaccinated will not lead to any girl having sex more, will reduce her chances of cancer, but may have a slight chance of complications.
The small chance of complications with a taser is waaaaaay better than saying "have a gun, but don't use it". Because we know, from human nature, that if someone has a gun, they will use it.
The situations aren't exactly the same, but I feel as though they are close.
I'm a person who believes my life is worth more than the life of someone trying to hurt me. I don't want to hurt people, I don't go out of my way to put myself in a situation where I'll get hurt. I don't advertise my things hoping to get robbed so I can try to intervene. I don't pick fights, I only say insulting things to my friends... you get the point.
If you really don't want to even be in the same room as people like me, then you should probably never come to any event in the United States. Pissing you off or making you unhappy was a risk I took when writing out what I said. I'm not fucked in the head as you say, I just don't believe the same things as you. I think you come across naive, self centered and arrogant in your writing, but I don't believe that is who you actually are, or an accurate representation of the whole you.
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/09/29/mccomas-tasers-abuse-misuse-kills/
http://www.ted.com/conversations/17794/the_criminal_misuse_of_tasers.html
Most of my searches turned up conspiracy laden results. I couldn't find a good study on the impact of taser adoption by police forces but what is evident anecdotely is that police forces with brutality problems use tasers more often than necessary and have serious problems with officers abusing the devices and using them just to make their job easier (why chase the guy you just cuffed when you can tase him? )
Several states and municipalities ban them outright but I couldn't quickly find information on the discussions that led to those bans.
I can't give you a black and white threshold that will apply to every situation 100 percent of the time. Even if I could I couldn't write it in a way that would stand up to any scrutiny (legally).
My threshold is essentially: I will not accept a severe beating, broken bones, etc from someone with intent to hurt me. If someone tries to do that then I want the right and tools to stop them. Legally, in my state, that is enough for me to use deadly force. I forget the actual term, but it's damage that would land you in the hospital, broken bones. Of course intent and opportunity are also required, but once they are beating you, it shows both.
I don't believe confiscation is imminent or even likely. Who would do it? The same cops who are very pro gun ownership? Not likely.
There are some reasonable measures that can be made, I think almost none of them will have a significant impact on gun deaths. Our society needs a lot of things, I believe that the larger number of gun deaths proportionally compared to similar countries has more to do with our other issues and less to do with the guns. Even if could magically make every gun disappear I think the US would have higher murder rates that those other similar countries.
We have enough problems with trained police abusing and misusing tasers. Now imagine an untrained populace carrying tasers.
Hollow points can be bought at almost any gun store, or wallmart. There may be a few states with restrictions, I'm not aware of any.
Hollow points have one primary function, to mushroom and do as much damage as possible (through the physical metal bits and mostly through the cavity produced by the energy being transmitted into the body. Someone could argue that they use hollow points to prevent over penetration, but they are missing the point and the purpose of the round. They are more effective at stopping a human then fmj rounds (full metal jacket).
I would also rather my drunk brother in law accidentally tase me than shoot me. With my first choice being that he not be around weapons while drinking.
Pepper spray is notoriously ineffective, it's why cops like to use the Taser first.
Tasers occasionally kill people, it's why Taser quietly changed their literature from non-lethal to less than lethal. The analogy of Tasers to vaccines is fairly apt, both kill people in a very low numbers but do more good than harm.
I have no issue with danger of death (or severe injury) as a necessary criterion for the use of deadly force, but
I don't think that's enough. In my view, there also has to be no other way of avoiding that danger. If you could have avoided that danger without the use of deadly force but chose not to do so, you bear much of the responsibility.
Luke's response to you was relatively extreme, but I think failing to mention the importance of deadly force being a last resort is the main reason he took issue with you. You may agree with that concept, but the fact that you didn't mention it suggests that it's not very important to you, and hence suggests that the actual worth you're putting on the other person's life is quite low.
If someone wants to harm you for the sake of harming you, or simply doesn't care at all whether they harm you or not, they are a psychopath. That, however, is an unusual situation. Most criminals are not psychopaths, and most psychopaths are not criminals. Most of the time you should be able to find ways of averting the danger to yourself (or to others) that don't involve the use of deadly force.
I think that failing to mention the importance of that consideration does a lot of harm to the culture around gun violence - what Lou called the "shoot first and ask questions later" school of thought. Self-defense laws that are soft on this aspect, like the "stand your ground" laws, contribute to this mentality.
Yes, I very much agree. I think there is a culture of violence in the U.S. that wouldn't simply go away if all the guns disappeared.
However, I think gun culture is related to that greater culture of violence, so changing attitudes towards guns is part of the solution.