Nutcan Debate Series: Volume One - Gun Control

There is almost definitely a "herd immunity" type effect with gun ownership and crime. I just don't know if, at the end of the day, it's worth it.

2) Regardless of which side of the line you feel like those weapons belong on, it seems reasonable that it should probably be harder to get your hands on a weapon capable of ripping a group of people into pieces than it is to get a cell phone, and probably less of a right to "privacy" than is required of a fishing license.

But otherwise, you need 2 tests and a live demonstration test, to get a licence to drive, I really don't see how there can be THIS much resistance to "maybe we shouldn't give assault weapons to crazy people" or "maybe we should close loopholes to rules we already have"

5. Beyond hunting, sport, and self-defense, the ability to keep arms for defense against a tyrannical government is a valid reason to protect that right and was a reason that the 2nd Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights. Yes, it is extremely unlikely that a scenario like that would come into play anytime soon, but 50 years from now? 100 years? Who knows. History is full of good governments going bad, and some even in the not too distant past. To pretend it could never happen is short-sighted and wrong. Moreover, if you concede your rights away in good times, why would you ever expect to get them back in bad times, when you may actually need them.

I disagree, if for no other reason that because if the "pro gun" side gets to play the "guns are so trivial for criminals to get anyway!" card as some sort of be-all-end-all to any sort public discussion about if we should attempt to be cautious about dangerous things, then it's asinine to me to bring up what the policy of the government these people are arming up to overthrow is regarding their guns.

If 100 years from now we reach a point where enough Americans agree that the government has to be overthrown via a bloody civil war, they won't give two shits that the government they're violently attempting to dismantle frowns on their assault weapon.

But at the same time, I'm hard pressed to believe that the features of an AR-15 are purely cosmetic. If the form of the rifle was simply for show, why would the US Military use essentially the same model, just with added power? The phsyical features and shape of the gun, firing mechanism, stock, etc. obviously plays some role with out well an individual is able to control the weapon and have precision in firing. My strong bet is that gun enthusiasts, the ones that want to own firearms for the purposes of self-defense, zombi apocolypse, or government dissolvement would want something that serves a function rather than something that simply looks cool. I've never held a rifle with a pistol grip, but I do know a thing or two about firing techniques. The pistol grip, compared to straight stock, would allow you to hold the firearm tighter against your shoulder (if for no other reason that the pistol grip is more ergonomic), giving you a better point of contact both at your hand and your shoulder, not to mention taking pressure off your front hand. In other words, you are able to hold the rifle more securely with slightly less effort. So it's not simply cosmetic. There is a functional advantage to some of the features that define the so-called "assualt weapon". If it didn't, the US military would have found a better design by now.

The time to resist unreasonable proposals are when the proposals are unreasonable, not when the proposals themselves are reasonable enough to, at the very least, be worthy of a discussion because theoretically someone might propose something unreasonable someday.

Take a simple example, the speed limit on some road. Lets say there's a road in town that is 25, but circumstance, or whatever, have changed, and someone proposes making it 30. 30, is reasonable, or not, even if it's a fact that "once we make it 30 someone will want it to be 35, and then 40, and the next thing you know someone will want to have the autobahn in front of the school!" Each one of those steps is worthy, or not, all on their own merits. Making it 30 isn't less reasonable a proposal because someone might ask for 45 some day, and the idea of making it 45 is reasonable, or not. Someone trying to make it 45 might indeed argue that "it's already 40mph", but to me that is backwards from what makes a slippy slope something to "fear". Saying "it's already 40mph" is really only to the point of people who would be arguing the point as if the speed limit was currently 20. 45 might indeed to too high, over some threshold, a bad idea for budgetary reasons, or whatever, but arguing against it as if it was some drastic change would be inaccurate, and arguing against it because you're really arguing against the "inevitable" 80mph speed limit is, IMO, stupid.

Things can sometimes feel like a "slippery slope", I suppose, but that probably stems more from public sentiment actually moving that way. So, like for gay marriage, I'm sure there will be people that said "see, we gave an inch and 5 years later they're taking a mile", when in reality what happens is 5 years ago there was support to take the inch, and now there's support to take a mile. If one was any sort of a building block, it was only demonstrating to a small group of people that "see, the world didn't end," but for the most part it wasn't really a "building block", in the sense that many people would spin it. Public sentiment might change over time, but any given proposal still passes a merit test, or not. Yes, incremental changes are probably "easier", but that isn't, in and of itself, a "give an inch they take a mile" style slippery slope looking back on it, and IMO, certainly a stupid reason to argue looking forward.

Perhaps more succinctly, a speed limit of 45 might be easier to pass if it's already been changed to 40 sometime in the past, but 45 is too fast, or not, regardless of that fact, and 45 certainly isn't "too fast because 60 is too fast."

tl;dr: IMO the "slippery slope" argument ranges anywhere from "not a reason" to "not even a thing"

That's actually a good way to put it Scott.

Intertwined with the notion of a slippery slope is this cynical, and IMO inaccurate, idea that "the government", as if it's a thing, which somehow didn't have the power before, will automatically run roughshod over the will of the people, and all of a sudden have some power, just because you budged. (And it can never ever be undone, even if all that does come to pass.)

To the part I put in bold: The worry is more that the will of the majority (or a vociferous minority) will infringe upon the constitutionally protected rights that we have, after all, that's why they put in the bill of rights.

To the rest of the quote: The last 80 or so years of history would beg to differ.

Exactly what?

Here's another question:
1) Do you think that everything in the constitution/bill of rights is on equal standing?
2) Do you think they're all, at their core, forever unassailable?

I'm not really saying "you made the argument", just that if giving anything ever is a slippery slope, and everything is so "easy" once it's done, and so on, and we've supposedly been on this "unstoppable freight train" for decades, shouldn't things be way far gone by now? We're still having pretty much the exact same conversations, sometimes something comes of them, sometimes not, sometimes the somethings that came get undone, or are left to expire. We banned assault weapons once. Not only did we not move on to hand guns, and get them banned too, we let the assault rifle ban expire. Nearly 20 years later and the talk is back on assault rifles, and mostly about background checks, not bans.

I just think there's a level of paranoia here that there's little evidence to support is based in reality.

So, do you think that some rights we have listed out in our various documents are more "agreed upon" whereas others are more fundamental or "self-evident" rights of a human being?

My strong bet is that gun enthusiasts, the ones that want to own firearms for the purposes of self-defense, zombi apocolypse, or government dissolvement would want something that serves a function rather than something that simply looks cool.

If it didn't, the US military would have found a better design by now.

But that's stupid, if you agree it should be 30. Argue against it being 40 when someone proposes it being 40. Changing it to 30 didn't magically grant some avenue/process toward 40. Whatever debate/process/proceedings led to the proposal of 30mph being "officially" considered, 40 still as to go through. The process is the same, it's warranted or not. It only makes it "easier" on the most absolute superficial level, except in cases where some meaningful precedent is actually established.

So if it goes from 25 to 30, then 30 to 35, now my argument that 40 is too fast falls on deaf ears because "hey, it's only an extra 5 miles an hour", even if I was voting against the increase of 25 to 30.

But then again, if we make it illegal to drive over 25, then only the criminals will get to work on time.

For example, though maybe to don't agree with this exact example, but only the gist of what I'm really asking: Do you think the core fabric of this country would be more altered by an amendment that makes free speech illegal than an amendment that axes the right to bare arms?

I believe the general argument is that, without the right to bare arms, what's to stop the government from taking away the right to free speech or any other right?

I don't believe you, or many others, truly believe this. First off, it falls victim to the thing I already stated, where if there came a time where enough people wanted to overthrow this government, and by force was the only avenue, no one will care what that governments policy on guns is. (Well, I was going to shoot a bunch of people, and put a gun to the right politicians heads to get them to abdicate, but I'm not supposed to have this gun, so, shucks.)

Secondly, if people think that, still, if even ever, that the only thing* stopping "the government", from taking something like free speech is that "they're" scared of "our guns", then that's just a crazy level of delusion.

*Or any meaningful part of the equation, for that matter.

I don't believe you, or many others, truly believe this. First off, it falls victim to the thing I already stated, where if there came a time where enough people wanted to overthrow this government, and by force was the only avenue, no one will care what that governments policy on guns is. (Well, I was going to shoot a bunch of people, and put a gun to the right politicians heads to get them to abdicate, but I'm not supposed to have this gun, so, shucks.)

Secondly, if people think that, still, if even ever, that the only thing* stopping "the government", from taking something like free speech is that "they're" scared of "our guns", then that's just a crazy level of delusion.

*Or any meaningful part of the equation, for that matter.

As I said 1000 posts ago, my main problem with these debates is that even raising the conversation about what side of the line something belongs on is seen as some hyper-liberal attack as if the very concept of having a line is a direct attack on their children, or based on some concrete obvious division point.

If we want to section off one thing from another, which we pretty much all agree we SHOULD be doing with the vague term of "Arms" in the 2nd amendment, then that's probably going to involve a point at which a line is, seemingly arbitrarily, drawn. It will probably be that way no matter where we put it, but let's have THAT debate as a society, and spare all the Orwellian talk about government needing to, literally, fear us, any curtailing of arms meaning it will all be curtailed, "only criminals will have ____", and so on.

I don't actually expect armed resistance against our government to be necessary in the future. But there are places in the world right now where the people with the guns are making all the rules, whether it's a military ruling class or insurgents that take over large territories or secret and/or federal police forces that oppress the citizens. So while at first glance it may seem somewhat ridiculous and "out there" for those of us that have lived in peace and harmony during our lives, a global perspective (and as Matt said, a historical one) may be cause to think twice. I don't want to be the "it'll never happen to me" country.

Plus there's the personal protection side of the coin.

If you ban nuclear weapons only criminals will have nuclear weapons.

They're "off limits" in my mind because they don't inform anything. They're not arguments, and to the extent they are, they apply equally well to everything. They're bumper sticker nonsense and "don't take medication because something something big pharma" paranoia, not an honest conversation about what we're actually doing.

Edit: Besides which, that's going a little farther than the context I meant anyway. If those types of things can be constructed in a way that informs where to put the line, that's completely different than lobbing them in there like a grenade to blow up the debate while pretending that we fundamentally disagree on the whole concept of a line, which most people actually don't disagree on.