faceh
9mo ago
Oh, so when we make Felons a class of people who can't own guns, are we doing something unfair?
I guess my question is, why wouldn't Democrats sign a document that voluntarily waives their own Second Amendment rights if it resulted in increased levels of gun control in the country?
Where do I sign? I'd bite that bullet for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. This is The Motte after all. I'm not going to retreat merely because my idea was pressed.
Incidentally, I'd also love a return to Federalism where the states can have more leeway over how they govern their own territories, but THAT is apparently goes too far by modern standards, which to me is an indictment of modern standards.
But no, I'm just making the point that 'compromise' requires both sides giving up something, and if the Dems want to achieve their gun-free utopia, they can start by with a compromise of imposing gun control on themselves.
faceh
9mo ago
I was wondering something similar when that Billionaire got splatted in the submersible last year.
Given that this mode of death leaves no body behind to identify, its a decent way to fake a death if you can pull off a switcheroo.
faceh
9mo ago
The point of criminal laws is not to ensure that a thing never happens.
... I mean, you can say that. But if that were the real point, surely we'd be seeing much stricter punishments for even petty crimes. And its the same people pushing for gun control who push for decriminalization of various activities, and 'defund the police,' and set up bail funds, and otherwise support an agenda that is so-called 'soft on crime.'
My guess is that the number of gun-related assassination attempts in Japan over the last 50 years is probably going to be less than the equivalent number per capita in the United States.
Yes, I have no problem admitting that the Japanese are far less violent on average than Americans. Not even a controversy.
Do YOU want to assert that violence in Japan would substantially increase if they repealed all gun laws and suddenly gun ownership became widespread in Japan?
(Because that's when we can start talking about the ACTUAL cause of violence, aside from guns)
I mean, I genuinely believe it is likely to have an impact on Gun crime since most of said crime occurs in cities that Democrats govern, anyway.
First, not all Democrats are anti-gun.
Then they can simply reject their party affiliation and maintain their rights.
Easy. They're not going to be inconvenienced in the least if they care about gun rights.
Second, those who are mostly don't want an absolute prohibition on firearms ownership.
I don't care what their proposal is, I'll accept any sort of gun control policy if it applies to registered Democrats only.
Find me one THEY will accept on those terms. Call it a 'compromise' position, which is how they always describe their proposals.
"Republicans say they want abortion banned. Therefore, we will hereby ban abortion, but only for registered members of the Republican Party. Clearly, this will have the desired effect of reducing abortions, and it's what they say they want. Sound fair?"
...Yes? That sounds absolutely like a step in the right direction that they would accept?
Have you even tried asking the question to the pro-life brigade? That wouldn't stop them pushing for more but its surely something they'd agree to!
Like, this is the question of "Okay, we'll ban abortion, BUT, we'll require the males to be held financially accountable for their children" question. Conservatives would hit that button so fast it'd make your head spin.
I mean, in my civilized country, a rando tried to assassinate the candidate of one of the two major political parties, so my trust is being strained.
And in Japan, another civilized country, THAT HAS GUN CONTROL OUT THE WAZOO, a rando succeeded at killing an ex-prime minister. With a gun.
As I said, dive into the stats nice and deep and things become clearer.
If the problem is you DON'T trust your neighbors, that's a significantly larger issue, and evidence you don't live in a civilized (part of the) country.
And I should perhaps remind you that we can 3D print firearms at home now so you're NOT going to prevent a sufficiently dedicated rando from getting one.
The relevant comparison is whether it would be constitutionally possible for a Federal ban on cars to be enacted. I very much doubt if such a thing would ever happen, but I don't think it would be unconstitutional.
The interstate commerce clause MIGHT stretch that far, but it is not in fact clear to me that a blanket car ban would pass muster unless there was some actual harm that the government was intervening to prevent. "Climate Change" might but probably doesn't cover that base.
Because I am pro-civilization and anti-violence, I have trouble with my tepid support of gun rights.
If you live in a civilized country, you should have little trouble trusting your neighbors with weapons.
If you don't live in a civilized country, the need for weapons should be almost self-evident.
I used to lean slightly pro-gun-control, but there's simply no way you can deep dive into the statistics and come away with the idea that the guns are the problem, and by focusing on guns, it is in fact harder to address more fundamental issues.
Which is why I am losing patience with gun-control advocates who burn so much effort on a cause that simply will not achieve its purported benefits.
Cars are advantageous, for example, but there is no recognized right to car ownership or operation.
I mean, you can own a car and it can't be taken from you by the government without due process and such (literally the fifth amendment), whereas operating one on public property is explicitly a 'privilege.' So no, there is no explicit right, but there's still an inherent protection in there.
It applying to just them and not to everyone.
It is applying to people who support gun control.
It would be unfair to apply it to those who oppose gun control, OBVIOUSLY. This is the fair outcome, where nobody gets a rule imposed on them without consent.
gun control for the entire country.
But as we've established, the entire country doesn't agree with it. So they can't get that. But they can get something.
Why wouldn't they accept a compromise that gets them PART of what they want? Surely they're capable of adapting their position to make such a thing 'fair'.
If they won't compromise aren't they just being unreasonable? That's what they keep saying about gun-rights advocates who refuse to compromise on gun control policies.
faceh
9mo ago
First, I don't think the vast majority of gun rights advocates would be in favor of such a compromise, so you're not putting forward a live proposal that is really worthy of consideration
Nobody has made this proposal seriously, so perhaps this is simply a matter of it not being considered at all yet.
Why not change that.
It's stupid to unilaterally disarm yourself, in a society where 40% of your "enemy" is legally armed.
Wow, maybe there's certain advantages to owning guns that THE SECOND AMENDMENT WAS MEANT TO PRESERVE?
I GUESS THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS GOOD FOR SOMETHING AFTER ALL.
/sarcasm
So this argument now convinced me that I should oppose ALL gun control measures.
Debate over, as far as I'm concerned.
"A rule that we believe is inherently fair and just shouldn't be applied against us, that's unfair and unjust!" Bullshit.
Why would people who want gun control rules applied to everyone object to those rules applying to them?
What's unjust about treating people PRECISELY how they propose treating others?
What makes it unfair, precisely? And why can't that unfairness be applied to gun control generally?
faceh
9mo ago
The point is to make someone live with the consequences of their own stated beliefs, whilst minimizing collateral harm.
If they won't accept THIS deal, then I refuse to accept any other proposal they could offer because its clear they DON'T actually believe that gun control measures would reduce crime and death, or else they'd jump at a chance to enact a partial gun ban.
If they can't get gun control passed any other way, surely those 20% of Democratic gun owners (who are an astoundingly small minority overall, so its not a big loss!) will sacrifice their rights for the greater good.
Or not, and force a reckoning.
Literally, I will accept any proposed gun control measure, background checks on down, as long as the caveat "only applies to registered Democrats" is appended to it.
Find me one they'd accept.
faceh
9mo ago
The US has never really had any insurgency or militia fighting the government.
I mean this is objectively not true if you look at the whole of its history, but lets just look at post-1900.
On the small scale:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_standoff
That armed resistance WON their conflict.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)
So did that one.
It is clear to me that the modern Democratic Party is essentially an enabler of violent crime, and that is one of the main reasons why I cannot imagine myself voting for a Democrat. However, I also see how the Republicans' pro-2nd Amendment position has contributed to the problem, and I cannot let them off the hook.
There's an OBVIOUS synthesis here, and I actually consider it an useful policy point that the GOP should adopt in their platform:
We should enact a federal ban on any registered members of the Democratic Party (or any organization that is their successor in interest) from owning a gun.
Yes, this 'technically' weakens the Second Amendment.
But since it also effectively bans firearm ownership for like 30% of the U.S. population, it actually brings the Democrats closer to what they CLAIM to want. So I expect they would not object to this particular law.
And lets put it this way, if the Dems don't believe in an individual right to bear arms, they shouldn't even care to fight this law in Court. Even if we GRANT that it is facially unconstitutional, who would bring the suit on their behalf? (This is tongue-in-cheek, the very SECOND anyone gets arrested under this law, there's going to be a civil rights suit filed). In the alternative, it would be funny to have the Dems funding lawsuits to strike down a gun control law.
From a moral/ethical standpoint, I see no problems with denying a group of people a 'right' they argue doesn't exist anyway (I also apply this to freedom of speech). ESPECIALLY when they can recover the right by simply changing their party affiliation.
I'm just curious if they would balk at such a law because it has a 'disparate impact' or it 'singles out one group', even if their underlying assertion is that the interest in question doesn't actually exist. Whining that its 'unfair' would be almost an admission that the right to own a gun does have some important value!
faceh
9mo ago
Yeah, and the broadness of that seems to allow them to both attack speech that is genuinely causing no harm AND to be selective in how they interpret the standard to allow the whole "two tier" thing to occur.
Its usually true, but there are often specific requirements that the incitement is actually likely to lead to 'imminent unlawful action' or similar. That is, someone will hear it and immediately take an illegal action. "Beat up that guy!" while pointing at some person in the crowd would be a classic example.
Kind of like how yelling "I'm going to kick your ass!" isn't an unlawful threat/assault if the person doing the yelling does not have the capacity to carry out the proposed action due to distance or some other factor.
It seems like it'd be 'trivial' to infiltrate the chat groups that are organizing these things and have a sting set up to roll up as many participants as possible.
Logistically challenging because of the decentralized nature of the situation. Its the rough equivalent to the raucous high school house party that gets out of hand, as soon as someone yells "SHIT, THE COPS" everyone scatters and most of them WILL get away.
I imagine the bigger difficulty is that a lot of those arrested would be minors and how do you justify throwing the book at them solely as a deterrent?
From a vigilante standpoint, I imagine a quick way to get them to disperse is to just fire a high-powered rifle into the air a few times and MAYBE put a couple rounds into an engine block. But ironically doing so is, individually, a more serious crime than what most of the actual miscreants are each committing so you're risking legal consequences yourself in the process.
Really seems like its a proxy for the quality of parenting in your area. If these things are happening regularly maybe it is a sign that the rot has really set in already.
faceh
9mo ago
Yep. See my comment here where the police will roll through at irregular intervals to make sure there's no nasty surprises or people hiding in the camps, but otherwise tolerate them when they're well away from civilization.
It WOULD be hard to formalize, because the way trespass laws work. The owner of a particular wooded, vacant parcel of land can tolerate a homeless camp but at any time can also have them all trespassed off if he wants to do something with it. So there could be 'tacit' agreement with the owner to tolerate them in the meantime, while reserving the right to kick 'em off if it becomes inconvenient. The other option is letting the city or county own the land but leave it undeveloped and just let the camp exist, but that opens up some potentially problematic optics. You don't want there to be any implied 'contract' between the land owner and the camped out homeless to ensure their safety as 'guests.'
The cops around here are also a bit more aggressive than average about enforcing panhandling laws, which has led to some 'interesting' tactics to evolve by the panhandlers to create some level of deniability as to why they're standing around at the intersection. Of course, summers here get hot and humid as balls so there is a natural deterrent in effect too. The panhandlers themselves are most likely to set up in places with shade.
faceh
9mo ago
Back when I was in the criminal defense world there'd be the occasional 'raid' on a given encampment which was basically just a handful of officers checking the tents for fugitives, drugs, and weapons, and otherwise making sure there were no dead bodies or hazards to the occupants. It was pretty obvious that arresting the homeless guys would be doing them a favor so unless there was an actual violent resister it was most common to just seize whatever contraband was lying around in plain sight and asking if anybody needed medical attention, then leaving.
If the raids are random enough, it probably disincentivizes them acting as drug mules and such.
faceh
9mo ago
I've also pulled the trick of befriending guys with actual experience with trauma medicine and having them around me a good portion of the time.
One is previously a Navy Corpsman who has stitched up bullet wounds in Marines, the other was previously an EMT and now a fireman. So long as I have one of them around I can be relatively certain I'll make it to the hospital if I'm not killed instantly by any particular event.
My health insurance is geared towards catastrophic events (and paying for lost wages from being unable to work) so I do have to make sure I can get to the emergency room.
If you have a law degree and bar license, you can do pretty well in this area. That's my secret, I zeroed in on practicing the exact type of law that people that live here are most likely to need.
I might have to make a follow-up post about my process for making the speadsheet of places I want to apply to. It was extremely Mottian. Salary and cost of living of course, but I also made my own adjusted cost of living.
Lol definitely mottean, but I think there's no real substitute for doing an actual 'vibe check' and living in an area for a while. But knowing what you're getting into is good.
presence of a med school, reputation of local hospitals, and a few others.
A mild pro-tip on this point is that moving somewhere with a lot of retirees tends to vastly increase the availability of local medical resources. Two main reasons: old folks are the major consumer of medical services so providers go where the money goes... and experienced doctors in the twilight of their careers will also move to this area as a pre-emptive retirement move, so you can have access to professionals with MASSIVE amounts of experience available, although it can be hard to book an appointment because they will work whatever hours they please.
I also don't mind gambling a bit that as a younger, healthy guy I'm unlikely to need any major medical services and so the quality of hospitals is demoted somewhat in my general hierarchy of needs.
faceh
9mo ago
I mean, if they can afford to pay for it then let them use their money to extend their life as much as they care to.
The real problem will end up being those whose body is still functional but whose mind is so far gone that they can't look after themselves and can't actually make an informed decision to accept euthanasia anyway.
So we provide 'palliative' care to folks who will never regain their faculties but could be kept alive another 3+ years with basic care. Do we spend those resources or no?
I have literally never seen a Fent zombie or similar zonked out drug user in person around here. I bet they exist, the drug trade sure does, but I'd guess they remain in off-the-beaten-path drug dens that are 'known to police' so they can keep an eye on things, and the druggies don't get to wander the street.
I think there are also areas that are rural enough and mostly vacant and abandoned where you can form a homeless camp without anybody noticing easily, so there's less pressure to set up in populated areas.
And of course, the local response to the housing crunch has been... building more housing at a frenetic pace. Much to my chagrin the cow pasture near my house has been converted into a tiny little gated community of houses on postage-stamp lots, but I can at least be pretty damn sure there's unlikely to be an 'affordable housing' development thrown up within walking distance of me.
I have received a job offer in a republican-run city in a blood-red state, and while I don't know if I'll be moving there, I will certainly be moving away from here.
As someone who lives in a particularly red area of an already red state, I'd say go ahead and do it... unless you're still angling to find a suitable life partner, then you might need to optimize for that first and foremost.
I read your entire post with a certain amount of bemusement, because while these problems aren't totally absent from this area, they're treated as an aberration, rather than a baked-in feature. The politicians and law enforcement talk a big game about fighting crime, and to a large extent actually follow through. I think the literal ONLY extant organized criminal gang active in the whole Tri-county area was rolled up and shut down the year after I moved here.
There was a single homeless man who used to post up outside my (very small) office building a couple years back. One day I came by and saw a Sheriff's deputy having a conversation with him. He hasn't been seen since, and no new vagrant has stepped in to take his place.
The town is miles and miles of suburbs, with one increasingly dense downtown area, and one long major 'strip' of road that has most of the local mainstay restaurants and amusements. That strip in particular is kept as clean and nice as possible because that's what drives most of the commerce for the surrounding area, although there are other developed areas that offer alternative, more walkable amenities.
On one occasion I was out with a date in the downtown area and a shooting occurred right outside the bar we were in. I didn't notice anything had happened until I walked outside and there were easily a dozen police cars with officers on the scene locking things down and questioning witnesses. These guys KNOW that keeping the area's reputation for safety intact is necessary to keep the money flowing here. So I dislike that there was in fact a shooting, but there is a certain comfort from knowing the local constabulary is actually focused on catching the guy and preventing it occurring again.
EDIT: I did a quick search of news articles, and there hasn't been a shooting incident in the downtown area since that one I happened be present for, over a year ago. And I laugh hard because it also dredged up news stories saying the perp of the previous shooting turned himself in (it was a white guy in case that matters), so the case wrapped up nigh-instantly rather than dragging out and people worrying about the guy resurfacing to do it again.
Much I could complain about, the local government has its corrupt and inefficient elements. But there's no sense in which I feel at risk, either my person or my property, when going about daily activities. Corrupt, inefficient, but RESPONSIVE and mostly competent governance is acceptable enough for me. I may at some point try to run for local office.
Also, there is a variety of great pizza places all around. Most of them are expensive though.
Yes, there's less 'culture' in the strict sense. I'd have to drive hours to go to a major concert or event. Although occasionally larger country music acts (the modern examples of the genre though, blech) do shows here. There are barely any 'tech jobs' to speak of, you're definitely not getting hired by one of the big players if you're here. There's something to the strategy of putting in 5 years with a giant company at high salary to save, then moving to a cheaper COL location with your nest egg.
Yeah the people are pretty fucking bland. The LGBTQ presence is limited overall, most restaurants close at 10, most bars around midnight. If you're in your twenties, the dating pool is limited and if you don't find a solid group of friends quickly, it can be very boring since most of the 'fun' stuff is geared for an older generation. Golf courses, tiki bars, nature trails. There IS a decent-sized university nearby where you could look for parties. But that is the tradeoff, because the more 'vibrant' the populace, the more likely you're getting all the attendant problems and risks, and the people around here just don't want to deal with that.
I understand why some people would accept the risks, the constant anxiety that is induced by living in a dense city with an apathetic (at best) government and frayed social fabric. I simply could never reach that sort of mindset myself. I like having a few local haunts that I can visit without fear of mugging, being shot at, or seeing a guy walking around naked and/or drugged out of his gourd. I like being able to have friends over without, as you have seen, having to warn them about the local wildlife. I like that what relatively low taxes I pay do actually go towards keeping the town nice and that the cops try their damndest to keep the undesirable elements on the fringes of society at bay.
And I feel like people who live in the cities long-term forget that all of this is EASILY possible if your citizens and your government just GIVE A DAMN, and that you don't have to believe that fixing things is futile.
faceh
9mo ago
but I find most of Trump's lying so transparent and bullshitty and unimportant that it's hard to even read them as lies, exactly.
Interesting point, and hits on something in the vein of "Trump's supporters take him seriously, but not literally."
Part of his image and legend is being a bragadoccio, and embellishing stories is something the 'average' person probably considers fine as long as you do it with a bit of a wink and a nod.
Vs. the normal Politician method of lying by omission, or using weasel words, or aggressive cherrypicking of data so that no particular statement is blatantly 'false' but ultimately the information is not conveying any 'truth' about the world to the listener.
Trump could claim to have a 15 inch penis, which is a very specific statement of fact, and fact checkers can retort "ACKSHULLY the largest recorded penis is 13 inches, it is extremely unlikely Trump has exceeded that length" and include photos of his (clothed) crotch which would suggest he's not that well endowed. But supporters wouldn't care because they don't expect him to whip his schlong out to prove it, they get the message as its presumably intended.
There's ample lies one can pin to Trump, I don't mind calling those out, but anybody who understands that politics is a game of dishonesty in every single aspect probably can't muster up much outrage for Trump as if NOW the political system is trying to enforce honesty in candidates.
The 'solution' to keeping your more-capable-of-violence group A under control is to keep them incapable of coordinating violence. And if possible the Group B's should keep a smallish sub-population of Group A that are loyal to Group B for whatever reason.
Thus if Group A is capable of immense violence, but they can't coordinate around shared goals or under a unified leader who can direct them against the most high-value targets, then they'll probably retain the status quo, especially if the conditions aren't too intolerable, even if it becomes increasingly obvious that Group B is incapable of preventing a violent incursion if one were to occur.
Especially with technological advances, where 3 guys in a tank are more powerful than 50 guys with rifles. Just make sure that the Group A guys in the tank are loyal to Group B!
So yeah, Group B can dominate so long as they can keep a large-scale physical confrontation off the table.
Now think about how atomized young men have become, with most of their 'friendships' being online.
Also think about how ANY male-oriented group or activity (Boy Scouts, anyone?) gets infiltrated and forced to allow in females, or crippled to a shadow of its former self.
Same for any sort of right-wing group that might actually be able to form a formidable enough front to enact serious violence if they wanted (Proud Boys?)
It COULD be interpreted as PRECISELY what the current society does. Keeps males from organizing around their capacity for violence by giving them endless distractions and disrupting any person who might be able to rally a significant number of disaffected-but-physically-capable men to his cause.
In which case, the only outlet these males would have is individual acts of semi-random violence against random members of the population. Can we say we're seeing more of that, these days?
See my thoughts here.
My basic thesis:
Unmarried women are a potent political force, but an incompetent military/martial one. If your political coalition is dependent on tons of addled females voting for them to maintain its support, it is ALSO dependent on NEVER allowing the other side to bring organized violence against them since those same females would fold instantly.
So expect a LOT of political capital to be expended on efforts to keep males from coordinating enough to actually fight back in any meaningful way.
More options
Context Copy link