Guns

[TheBitcoinChemist]

My whole reason posting here was to prove to everyone - no statistics exists that proves that guns increase or reduce violence. Let's go again with your statistics. Since your city with CC has higher crime rate than NYC. Guns are a hobby, nothing to do with crime.

You have failed to "prove" any such thing, and can't, since such statistics actually do exist.  The largest & most complete study of gun laws and crime stats ever compiled were published under the short but descriptive title of More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott and includes crime data from every county in the United States over a 29 year span.  There actually is a demonstrateable inverse relationship between the number of privately owned firearms in society and the violent crime rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Guns,_Less_Crime

edit: Toronto crime rate is lower, but does it have to do with their draconian gun laws in the WHOLE country?

It could, but is more likely to be related to the fact that Canada is even more of a single culture than even Louisville.  The stats & conclusions presented in the book above may or may not have any direct bearing on Canada, Australia or Britain; but logic would imply that since we have a common cultural background that they probably do.

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[TheBitcoinChemist]

Let's go again with your statistics. Since your city with CC has higher crime rate than NYC. Guns are a hobby, nothing to do with crime.

I should also point out here that the large difference in public police officers in my city than yours also means that there are about as many actual firearms in NYC as there are in my city, per capita.  They just happen to be primarily in the possession of a privileged warrior class.  So the logic of the book mentioned above remains sound, as the number of legitimate firearms in society increases the rate of violent criminal confrontations declines.  It may not matter exactly in what context those weapons are legitimate. 

And the crime rate in Louisville is marginally higher than in NYC, by abut 4 crimes per 100,000 people or so.

And I was just watching a great episode of Stossel that was all over this topic, and particularly the draconian gun laws in NYC.

[vampire]

You have failed to "prove" any such thing, and can't, since such statistics actually do exist.  The largest & most complete study of gun laws and crime stats ever compiled were published under the short but descriptive title of More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott and includes crime data from every county in the United States over a 29 year span.  There actually is a demonstrateable inverse relationship between the number of privately owned firearms in society and the violent crime rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Guns,_Less_Crime

The same page is showing a long list of studies that disprove the book. - Whoops. Correlation isn't causation. NYC's crime was falling too. Pull out the numbers yourself and prove to me.


Goes back as far as 1960:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr/

And the crime rate in Louisville is marginally higher than in NYC, by abut 4 crimes per 100,000 people or so.

It could, but is more likely to be related to the fact that Canada is even more of a single culture than even Louisville.  

LOL, so Lousiville has more of a single culture and MORE crime than in NYC. Nuff said? I just "correlated" that guns cause crime.

NYC has embassies of most countries here, how many you got in Louisville? Zero? United Nations, Federal Reserve, etc, etc. That's why we have more cops too.


edit: since I've been to Toronto multiple times, I kinda had a feeling that its more diverse than Louisville.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto#Cultural_diversity

Also there are lot of eastern european slavs in Toronto that were counted as white, a lot of them don't speak English and live in their communities. Same as Brighton Beach in NYC.

edit2: While conceal carry is almost impossible in NYC, NYC has shall issue license for premises only handguns. That's still a lot easier to get a gun than most of the world :-)

[caveden]

If you don't mine me jerking off infront of your family, blasting my music all night long, driving my car the way i want - i am fine.

You can drive however you want, too. But if you damage someone or their property, you will be liable for that.

Perhaps not quite "however you want". Threats are a form of aggression too, and the use of proportional force to repeal such threats is acceptable. The same way you cannot shoot towards an innocent crowd - even if you don't hit anyone -, you can't drive totally recklessly, threatening other drivers or pedestrians - even if you haven't yet damaged anyone, your behavior can be seen as a threat.
But more important, we should note that in a free society, streets and roads would have owners, who would be free to set their arbitrary rules for the usage of such roads if they want to.

To vampire:
Blasting strong sounds over somebody property is an obvious aggression, as with any so-called "negative externality". Important to remember that the principle of "proportional force" always remains when dealing with any [attempt of] aggression.

And finally, concerning "public obscenity" in a free society, then it really depends on the owner of the place you are. If, for example, you are in a condominium where people are allowed to have sex on the streets during daylight, then well, they are allowed, I think we can safely conclude most places would not allow such things though.

Now, seriously, would it be that difficult to realize what I've just wrote you by yourself? Are you limited in your imagination and deductive reasoning, or you just like to throw here whatever comes up in your mind instantly, without even trying to think for a couple minutes what the answer to your challenges would be? If this was your first contact with libertarianism I could understand it, but I don't think this is the case - or is it? I really think you could answer those things yourself, if you actually wanted to.

[vampire]

To vampire:
Blasting strong sounds over somebody property is an obvious aggression, as with any so-called "negative externality". Important to remember that the principle of "proportional force" always remains when dealing with any [attempt of] aggression.

Not, it's not.. I can blast music from 8am to 10pm in NYC. Now you understand why guns are dangerous in the hands of crazed individuals like yourself.

And finally, concerning "public obscenity" in a free society, then it really depends on the owner of the place you are. If, for example, you are in a condominium where people are allowed to have sex on the streets during daylight, then well, they are allowed, I think we can safely conclude most places would not allow such things though.

Now, seriously, would it be that difficult to realize what I've just wrote you by yourself? Are you limited in your imagination and deductive reasoning, or you just like to throw here whatever comes up in your mind instantly, without even trying to think for a couple minutes what the answer to your challenges would be? If this was your first contact with libertarianism I could understand it, but I don't think this is the case - or is it? I really think you could answer those things yourself, if you actually wanted to.

You're limiting your deduction. In free society I can do whatever I want, where I want as long as don't damage anyone. Now you're imposing the damn rules because you're hurt? Well damn then guns are forbidden too, since they hurt my feelings.

[cryptoanarchist]

That includes the freedom to carry any weapon so desired for personal defense. Whether a fully-automatic M-16 or a derringer pistol, a holstered/slung weapon is not hurtingdamaging anyone.

If you don't mine me jerking off infront of your family, blasting my music all night long, driving my car the way i want - i am fine.

You can jerk off in front of my family and blast your music all night long, and I can shoot you when you do.

[Explodicle]

That includes the freedom to carry any weapon so desired for personal defense. Whether a fully-automatic M-16 or a derringer pistol, a holstered/slung weapon is not hurtingdamaging anyone.

If you don't mine me jerking off infront of your family, blasting my music all night long, driving my car the way i want - i am fine.

You can jerk off in front of my family and blast your music all night long, and I can shoot you when you do.

Wait wait wait. You can shoot me for jerking off in AnCap? I thought I'd just get kicked off the property because retaliation had to be proportionate.

[TheBitcoinChemist]

You have failed to "prove" any such thing, and can't, since such statistics actually do exist.  The largest & most complete study of gun laws and crime stats ever compiled were published under the short but descriptive title of More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott and includes crime data from every county in the United States over a 29 year span.  There actually is a demonstrateable inverse relationship between the number of privately owned firearms in society and the violent crime rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Guns,_Less_Crime

The same page is showing a long list of studies that disprove the book. - Whoops. Correlation isn't causation. NYC's crime was falling too. Pull out the numbers yourself and prove to me.

Correlation isn't causation, but Wikipedia tends to be fairly balanced so they are kinda obligated to include those studies that claim to disprove the book's conclusions.  The thing is that John Lott is no idealogue, he's a scientist who went to great lengths to adjust & include the influences of social & other effects.  I've actually read the book, and it's well done.  It's certainly not all 'rah, rah our side is right!'.  He explictly attempts to address in advance critisisms from other academics.  Even though he is considered a political conservative now, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lott) like many of us he didn't start there. (I was once a Green, then I grew up)  He has publicly stated that when he started gathering data for this study, he didn't expect the conclusions that he found, but as a scientist he couldn't just ignore what the data was telling him.  His methodology was praised by other academics in his field for it's accuracy and derided mostly by academics not in his field, mostly because of ideology.  Ideology doesn't enter into the book at all, nor does the moral argument.  It's purely an statistiacla examination of the results.

And the crime rate in Louisville is marginally higher than in NYC, by abut 4 crimes per 100,000 people or so.

It could, but is more likely to be related to the fact that Canada is even more of a single culture than even Louisville.  

LOL, so Lousiville has more of a single culture and MORE crime than in NYC. Nuff said? I just "correlated" that guns cause crime.

Nonesense, as already noted a large reason that Louisville's numbers are worse than NYC's is due to the DUI manslaughter issue, which is a social ill completely unrelated to the presence or lack thereof of weaponry.  If I could seperate that out of both cities stats I would, and I would wager that would result in a lower violent crime rate for louisville.  4 out of 100K is a tiny difference, easily overtaken by the (likely much) higher incidence of alcohol related vehicular mansluaghter around here.  I'm not saying that it's somehow better to die from a drunk driver than from an armed mugger, but the statement above implies that Louisville's crime rate is higher as a result of privately owned guns, which is not the case.

And, ironicly, Louisville is pretty diverse in another way, as it's one of the major refugee relocation cities in America.  (http://www.arcadiacommunitycenter.org/refugeeinfo.html)

NYC has embassies of most countries here, how many you got in Louisville? Zero? United Nations, Federal Reserve, etc, etc. That's why we have more cops too.

So the United Nations (which has it's own police force, which I beleive is independent of NYC cops) and the Federal Reserve (which halso has it's own security force that I know is independent of NYC cops) justifies the massive difference in professional police forces?

edit2: While conceal carry is almost impossible in NYC, NYC has shall issue license for premises only handguns. That's still a lot easier to get a gun than most of the world :-)

Interesting, I didn't know that.  How does the license holder get the gun to the property?  Does he have to pay the NYC cops to carry it for him from the city limits?  I heard on Stossel last night that about 300 people are arrested at Laguardia Airport each year and charged with illegal possesion of a firearm because they were traveling with it in a TSA approved lockbox and transfered through NYC, even though NYC was neither their destination nor origination.  Even the cops admit this is screwed up, but the port authority must abide by the laws of NYC as well, and airport property is not exempt from those anti-private-gun laws.  (Because they certainly aren't anti-gun laws, or the cops would be locking up theirs too)

[FirstAscent]

(I was once a Green, then I grew up)

Based upon this choice of words, I suspect what you mean is that at one time you thought it was trendy to be green, but didn't actually educate yourself on the science of ecology, ecosystems, and the environment, and then just got tired of what you decided was a fad, and declared yourself something else.

[vampire]

Correlation isn't causation, but Wikipedia tends to be fairly balanced so they are kinda obligated to include those studies that claim to disprove the book's conclusions.  The thing is that John Lott is no idealogue, he's a scientist who went to great lengths to adjust & include the influences of social & other effects.  I've actually read the book, and it's well done.  It's certainly not all 'rah, rah our side is right!'.  He explictly attempts to address in advance critisisms from other academics.  Even though he is considered a political conservative now, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lott) like many of us he didn't start there. (I was once a Green, then I grew up)  He has publicly stated that when he started gathering data for this study, he didn't expect the conclusions that he found, but as a scientist he couldn't just ignore what the data was telling him.  His methodology was praised by other academics in his field for it's accuracy and derided mostly by academics not in his field, mostly because of ideology.  Ideology doesn't enter into the book at all, nor does the moral argument.  It's purely an statistiacla examination of the results.

As I said NYC crime went down drastically, no thanks to guns. I see plenty of good studies that show that correlation isn't causation. A

Nonesense, as already noted a large reason that Louisville's numbers are worse than NYC's is due to the DUI manslaughter issue, which is a social ill completely unrelated to the presence or lack thereof of weaponry. If I could seperate that out of both cities stats I would, and I would wager that would result in a lower violent crime rate for louisville.  4 out of 100K is a tiny difference, easily overtaken by the (likely much) higher incidence of alcohol related vehicular mansluaghter around here.  I'm not saying that it's somehow better to die from a drunk driver than from an armed mugger, but the statement above implies that Louisville's crime rate is higher as a result of privately owned guns, which is not the case.

Do you have statistics, or you're pulling numbers out of air? DUI happens in NYC also. I am saying that it's safer in NYC. Your implication  that CCW made Louisville safer is ridiculous. Don't put your words in my mouth - I will say again for deaf: Guns have no correlation on crime.

And, ironicly, Louisville is pretty diverse in another way, as it's one of the major refugee relocation cities in America.  (http://www.arcadiacommunitycenter.org/refugeeinfo.html)

You really want to compare 2.36 millions vs 53 thousands? I hope not.... And yes, 36% of NYC is foreign born.

So the United Nations (which has it's own police force, which I beleive is independent of NYC cops) and the Federal Reserve (which halso has it's own security force that I know is independent of NYC cops) justifies the massive difference in professional police forces?

Federal Reserve has no security outside, I just went to gym on Wall Street - you can see M-16 armed NYPD cops there (mostly to take pictures with tourists). United Nations has a bunch of NYPD outposts around it, and pretty much around every major embassy. So we have heavy police force - great. When you get even close to the density of the city, lets compare again. It still I fail to see how would CCW would improve crime rate in NYC?

Interesting, I didn't know that.  How does the license holder get the gun to the property?  Does he have to pay the NYC cops to carry it for him from the city limits?  I heard on Stossel last night that about 300 people are arrested at Laguardia Airport each year and charged with illegal possesion of a firearm because they were traveling with it in a TSA approved lockbox and transfered through NYC, even though NYC was neither their destination nor origination.  Even the cops admit this is screwed up, but the port authority must abide by the laws of NYC as well, and airport property is not exempt from those anti-private-gun laws.  (Because they certainly aren't anti-gun laws, or the cops would be locking up theirs too)

Ammo and the gun in separate boxes in the trunk if you have a license. But if you're out of city, do NOT ever touch your gun (or box). Let the airline handle your baggage, i.e. if your flight got cancelled you can't take baggage with your gun in it.

[myrkul]

If you don't mine me jerking off infront of your family, blasting my music all night long, driving my car the way i want - i am fine.

You can drive however you want, too. But if you damage someone or their property, you will be liable for that.

Perhaps not quite "however you want". Threats are a form of aggression too, and the use of proportional force to repeal such threats is acceptable. The same way you cannot shoot towards an innocent crowd - even if you don't hit anyone -, you can't drive totally recklessly, threatening other drivers or pedestrians - even if you haven't yet damaged anyone, your behavior can be seen as a threat.
But more important, we should note that in a free society, streets and roads would have owners, who would be free to set their arbitrary rules for the usage of such roads if they want to.

Good point. Clearly reckless driving can be compared to waving a loaded gun around... with the exception that if you shoot the person waving the gun around, the gun doesn't go off, firing into a crowd - yet that's exactly what could happen if you try and take drastic action to stop a reckless driver.

And yes, the fact that the streets and roads would have owners would be much more pertinent... In the same way that you can't go into McDonalds and start yelling, cursing, and urinating on the floor, antisocial behavior will not be tolerated on the roads, either, and you're likely to be ejected rather quickly.

You can jerk off in front of my family and blast your music all night long, and I can shoot you when you do.

Wait wait wait. You can shoot me for jerking off in AnCap? I thought I'd just get kicked off the property because retaliation had to be proportionate.

Crypto might be a little riled up here. Rarely will it go directly from offensive action to bullet in the face. You'd have to fight pretty hard to eventually get shot... starting with refusing to leave.

[TheBitcoinChemist]

(I was once a Green, then I grew up)

Based upon this choice of words, I suspect what you mean is that at one time you thought it was trendy to be green, but didn't actually educate yourself on the science of ecology, ecosystems, and the environment, and then just got tired of what you decided was a fad, and declared yourself something else.

Oh, no.  I was never one for fads.  I was a hardcore greenie as a teen, my father was quick to make fun of me and my views.  If your father was a wise man, eventually you will start to echo him also.

[FirstAscent]

And yes, the fact that the streets and roads would have owners would be much more pertinent... In the same way that you can't go into McDonalds and start yelling, cursing, and urinating on the floor, antisocial behavior will not be tolerated on the roads, either, and you're likely to be ejected rather quickly.

Who do you think was not allowing concealed weapons into the Aurora movie theater? Answer: Cinemark.

[myrkul]

And yes, the fact that the streets and roads would have owners would be much more pertinent... In the same way that you can't go into McDonalds and start yelling, cursing, and urinating on the floor, antisocial behavior will not be tolerated on the roads, either, and you're likely to be ejected rather quickly.

Who do you think was not allowing concealed weapons into the Aurora movie theater? Answer: Cinemark.

Well, hopefully this incident will encourage them to change that policy.

[TheBitcoinChemist]

Nonesense, as already noted a large reason that Louisville's numbers are worse than NYC's is due to the DUI manslaughter issue, which is a social ill completely unrelated to the presence or lack thereof of weaponry. If I could seperate that out of both cities stats I would, and I would wager that would result in a lower violent crime rate for louisville.  4 out of 100K is a tiny difference, easily overtaken by the (likely much) higher incidence of alcohol related vehicular mansluaghter around here.  I'm not saying that it's somehow better to die from a drunk driver than from an armed mugger, but the statement above implies that Louisville's crime rate is higher as a result of privately owned guns, which is not the case.

Do you have statistics, or you're pulling numbers out of air? DUI happens in NYC also. I am saying that it's safer in NYC. Your implication  that CCW made Louisville safer is ridiculous. Don't put your words in my mouth - I will say again for deaf: Guns have no correlation on crime.

I don't have access to published stats that I can refer to, no.  Still, saying that guns have no effect on the crime rate is at least as rediculous as saying that CCW made Louisville safer. (actually, I wasn't saying that.  Louisville has long been a relatively low crime city.  CCW certainly didn't make the city less safe, either)  To make that point I can again refer to the high number of cops in NYC, for they all have legitimately possessed firearms.  The stats in that book didn't really make a distinction between legimate guns carried by CC licensees and those carried by state sanctioned policemen.  The effects are not exactly the same, and I would assume that there is a measure of greater effect per policeman than per CCW, but the effects are similar.  Namely that the higher the percentage of persons sanctioned to be armed in public, the higher the personal risks (legal and phyiscal) to the career criminal, and most crimes are indeed commited by prophessional criminals.

And, ironicly, Louisville is pretty diverse in another way, as it's one of the major refugee relocation cities in America.  (http://www.arcadiacommunitycenter.org/refugeeinfo.html)

You really want to compare 2.36 millions vs 53 thousands? I hope not.... And yes, 36% of NYC is foreign born.

Dude, please.  I'm not stupid.  i was comparing to your Toronto reference, not against NYC.

So the United Nations (which has it's own police force, which I beleive is independent of NYC cops) and the Federal Reserve (which halso has it's own security force that I know is independent of NYC cops) justifies the massive difference in professional police forces?

Federal Reserve has no security outside, I just went to gym on Wall Street - you can see M-16 armed NYPD cops there (mostly to take pictures with tourists). United Nations has a bunch of NYPD outposts around it, and pretty much around every major embassy. So we have heavy police force - great. When you get even close to the density of the city, lets compare again. It still I fail to see how would CCW would improve crime rate in NYC?

I don't know that it would, but it might by increasing the personal risks to career criminals, see above.  What I am claiming is that there is no reason to assume that a CCW license in NYC would
increase the risk to either the public or the police.  There is much evidence to suggest, if nothing else, that CCW holders are a self-selecting group who are, statistically speaking, a law-abiding lot who commit nominally zero percent of violent crimes; and are also the same kind of people that most police forces draw their recruits from anyway.  So while Louisville benefits from the dispersed protective "herd immunity" effects of a tenth of our adult population carrying firearms for self-defense for no cost to the taxpayer, NYC benefits from the more concentrated effects of trained agents of the state/city who do the same thing as an occupation under a tax funded salary.  The end results being pretty close, with an edge to NYC, granted.

Interesting, I didn't know that.  How does the license holder get the gun to the property?  Does he have to pay the NYC cops to carry it for him from the city limits?  I heard on Stossel last night that about 300 people are arrested at Laguardia Airport each year and charged with illegal possesion of a firearm because they were traveling with it in a TSA approved lockbox and transfered through NYC, even though NYC was neither their destination nor origination.  Even the cops admit this is screwed up, but the port authority must abide by the laws of NYC as well, and airport property is not exempt from those anti-private-gun laws.  (Because they certainly aren't anti-gun laws, or the cops would be locking up theirs too)

Ammo and the gun in separate boxes in the trunk if you have a license. But if you're out of city, do NOT ever touch your gun (or box). Let the airline handle your baggage, i.e. if your flight got cancelled you can't take baggage with your gun in it.

Do you not see the problem with requiring that travelers abandon their personal property in the care of unknown agents of the TSA, some of which might be very valuable?

[TheBitcoinChemist]

Strangely enough, this little article ranks Louisville as the 62nd 'drunkest' city in the US, but Lexington at #28.  Lexington is barely a whole city by most standards, so that is more than a little weird.

http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/Americas-Drunkest-Cities/Lexington-KY.php#slidetop

http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/Americas-Drunkest-Cities/Louisville-KY.php#slidetop

While NYC is, at #93, ranking after the entire state of Ohio and most of California...

http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/Americas-Drunkest-Cities/New-York-NY.php#slidetop

Considering the differences in the "Deaths in DUI crashes" metric, I'm going to call my claim that a 4 crime per 100K difference to be due to differences in DUI related vehicular manslaughter cases to be a strong win.  That easily makes up for 4 per 100K.

EDIT: And the bar in the photo used is the Bluegrass Brewing Company, a local microbrewery on Frankfort Avenue locally known as "The BBC".  Nice place, kinda pricy.  A single mug of beer can run as high as $6 there, for one of the specialized brews.

BTW, Vampire; how much does a beer cost in NYC?

[TheBitcoinChemist]

http://www.infowars.com/another-aurora-colorado-mass-killing-prevented-in-april-by-man-with-gun/

Notable factoid here in this opinion piece.  The title sums it up nicely.

[vampire]

http://www.infowars.com/another-aurora-colorado-mass-killing-prevented-in-april-by-man-with-gun/

Notable factoid here in this opinion piece.  The title sums it up nicely.

Except twisted lies nothing to see here.

a) stopped by a cop
b) never tried to enter the church
c) crashed his car with a suspended license.

[vampire]

Dude, please.  I'm not stupid.  i was comparing to your Toronto reference, not against NYC.

MY REFERENCE? WTF?? References Toronto and blames me? Wow.

It wouldn't be hard for NYC to be challenging Toronto's crime stats.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90086.msg1049484#msg1049484

[TheBitcoinChemist]

http://www.infowars.com/another-aurora-colorado-mass-killing-prevented-in-april-by-man-with-gun/

Notable factoid here in this opinion piece.  The title sums it up nicely.

Except twisted lies nothing to see here.

a) stopped by a cop

An off-duty cop, someone with the legal right to carry a weapon in public spaces.  That's exactly the debate here.

b) never tried to enter the church

Yes the opinion piece was biased, which is why I called it an opinion piece, but you obviously didn't bother to read it.  The guy certainly did try to enter the church.

c) crashed his car with a suspended license.

And shot a bystander who was presumedly trying to help him.  So what?