Help! People on other forums raging everywhere!

Miscellaneous Current Events
1

So WillyTruth’s thread sort of ties in to this, but…

“gun control and accesible mental health (and health care in general for that matter) are steps in the right direction without a doubt. About the mental health I remember that one of the most shocking things when I lived in Sacramento was noticing that a huge part of the homeless people had clear mental problems, but everyone I asked about it said something along the line of “well if he’s not able to take care of himself why should I?” well my friends those people should be taken care of (at least on a very basic level) precisely because they’re not able to do that themselves! what are you exactly paying taxes for if you don’t have health care, education is batshit insane expensive and so many people are just abandoned to themselves? I’m going out of topic here though, but even here in Italy the cities where people kill each other are always the ones where the State just gave up (i.e. Naples, that’s a huge mess).”

I’m seeing this kind of stuff pop up everywhere, and so I wanted to create a thread specifically regarding how to respond to these lies.

2

It’ll blow over. Don’t fight the beast when it is most angry.

3

I just detest the fact that people use tragic events as an excuse for oppression.

EDIT

Also, I just have to give this guy a retort, albeit with the Socratic method (that’s fighting the beast without letting him or her know you’re fighting). What should be my first question?

4

Ask him what the costs of public vs. private schools are (the real costs, not what you pay after taxation).

5

Problem is -he- doesn’t view it as oppression. So you’ve got to attack his basic premises.

6

But that is too nitpicky. Ask him instead what type of gun control he (?) would like to see.

Just explore his understanding.

7

http://z10.invisionfree.com/RedLetterMedia/index.php?showtopic=5016&st=15&#entry22342838

Alright, let’s wait and see.

EDIT

Agh, you posted too soon Wheylous!

8

Just tell him that guns stop crimes, statistically you’re on higher ground while he’s a raving madman.

Let’s be honest, if you own a nice home in the middle of some random town, would you sleep well at night without any kind of protection? What about women who are the targets of men? These people are stupid.

9

Please post the statistics. h.k.

10

Okay, I just posted something in response to this:

"You know I love Penn and Tellers bullshit, but this episode is entirely bullshit, all they do is bring up conjecture, just use the absences of a thing happening as evidence to why it will never happen and don’t have any real data to back anything up.

Also they just regurgitate that notion that “well if everyone had guns everyone would be safe!”

Which I think is hilarious because we are the most armed nation in the world, so that means we should be the safest right?

My Response: So what about Switzerland, where everyone has to own a gun? Microscopic crime-rate. If somebody really wanted to kill a lot of people, “gun control” won’t prevent them - all it will do is just oppress people who wish to exercise their right to self-defense. You can find instructions on how to make bombs using household items on basic internet video-sharing websites. So what then? Control those household items as well? Incorporate even more censorship to black out the information that gets put on these websites?

Look, asking for government to take away your right to own a weapon was something that Hitler thought was a great idea, so he made sure to implement “gun control” right away. But you never seem to hear anything about that (or the Chinese Civil War, or the Russian Revolution, etc.)

But I would think the 1920s would be enough evidence to display the fact that Prohibition of any sort of item doesn’t work and just results in destruction and oppression.

EDIT

And also, look up videos of cops on YouTube “protecting” their citizens. Weapons in the hands of the police are practically just as bad."

Here are the responses:

And you can use planes to blow up buildings, so why not just let people have nuclear bombs?

It’s not a basic right to own a button that takes a life with every time you press it.

Next one:

If I’m not mistaken, that only applies to conscripted militia. It’s a poor comparison to make unless you are suggesting that we should also make military service universal and compulsory.

And this one:

Switzerland does have gun control. Gun ownership is part of their military/civilian militia, which the people and government control in consort. US gun ownership is personal, not part of a mandated civilian militia. There is a huge difference. We don’t have to be trained or educated to own a gun.

HELP PLZ

11

Why do you need statistics to prove that having a gun affords you protection?

That’s silly. To hell with statistics. They don’t mean anything anyway.

12

It was stupid I know, especially since we’re Austrians. But…what can I say, I could have sworn Switzerland was a prime example, so I gave in.

13

And now he is cornered. Why? Because the real reason we want to own weapons is to protect ourselves from an oppresive government. This is the number one reason. Historically, you have the proof (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il in North Korea). In fact, it is no argument that the most numerous, villanous murders have been carried out by the hands of an armed government on its unarmed populace.

So what is his likely response? Well, he can’t deny history, so his only defense is that he doesn’t believe that could ever happen here. Not in his country. But of course, he can’t use that argument because of how he responded to Penn and Teller. After all, “the absences of a thing happening is not evidence as to why it will never happen again.”

14

**

On it’s face this is not strictly correct. People who want to kill make decisions on the margin just like everyone else. If it’s harder to get guns, this could curb some gun deaths. If it is harder to get guns, this will also on the margin stop people from being able to defend themselves.

Stats are essentially useless because you can find stats to ‘prove’ the case either way, both accross countries and cultures and within the same populations. It’s multi factor issue and likely impossible to truly isolate how much the crime rate/murder rate in this or that area is due to gun control or the lack thereof. It’s just easier to see the harm done by psychotics with guns than it is to see the harm averted because decent people were armed.

The basic and most fundamental point is that no individual has the right to forcibly stop another individual from doing something that is not per se harmful to others. Owning guns does not harm anyone. If they are more easily available they will be more frequently used when people do want to harm others and more frequently used as a means of defense as well. That’s simply a tautology. If you address the issue of harm by individuals with guns by restricting access to them, you will potentially raise the amount of harm possible by disarming decent people and reducing the deterent they represent. If you’re a utilitarian you can try and determine the potential lives lost vs saved and choose the option that spares the most people.

If you’re not a utilitarian, you can stand on principle and be made to look like an insensitive asshole due to emotions running high at times like this. And you can potentially answer this rhetorical disadvantage by seeking out and using instances of people using guns to defend themselves and celebrating them as much as possible to offset the political advantage gun control advocates get when some schmuck goes on a rampage.

Not that it will matter much in the end. People rarely change their minds, they merely look for facts that reinforce their existing belief system without worrying over much whether or not their beliefs are logically consistent or if their ‘facts’ are indeed facts.

15

I see. Is it okay if I copy and paste this on that forum? I’ll put it in quotes.

16

Knock yourself out.

17

I might explore what laws keep people from helping the homeless etc. For instance, the laws against dumpster diving in SF apparently keeps a lot of apparently pretty good food out of the hands of volunteers or street-people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Not_Bombs#Involvement_in_Resistance_to_Restrictions_on_Food_Sharing

18

When I was involved with the Norfolk chapter of Food Not Bombs years back the city shut us down because we were feeding people healthy food on the streets, but we didn’t have any “legitimate” documentation of what we did and apparently it was a health violation. Not on the food (we made sure everything was in safe keeping), but they had some logic that you just can’t feed people on the streets, and it would be different if the voluntarily came into our homes to eat (what’s the difference?). Bunch of bullshit.

19

Outrageous. See gov., this is why we can’t do nice things.

In the future, when the welfare state is 10xs bigger, people will ask “why couldn’t private charity help people in the past?” Most will think it was owing to the stinginess of human nature, but a few will know it was because of the unthinking dictates of the state.

20

If you want a boogey man, then try this.

The root cause of this evil is the expectation of a person getting something at the expense of another. All other issues are a mere symptom. The fact these folks are submitting their own heinous ideas only prove the point.