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A fun framework I often go to for thinking about policy issues is what I guess I'll call "identifying a Buridan point". The gist is:
Given a binary decision (options A or B) I must make based on a continuous input where:
there must exist some point C (Y>C>X), where I am perfectly equivocal between options A and B. This point C is the "Buridan point" and gives me a quantification of my stance on a particular issue.
Here is a simple example: Suppose Joe must decide if he supports euthanizing all dogs based on the rate of children killed by dogs:
Therefore, there must exist some "acceptable" rate of children killed by dogs X at which Joe finds the benefits of dog ownership to exactly offset the lives of killed children.
In an ideal world, people would keep control of their dogs but there will be mistakes and there will be bad actors. The only way to absolutely guarantee that no child is killed by a dog is by eliminating all dogs. The decision to not euthanize all dogs is accepting that the children killed by dogs every year are an acceptable sacrifice for the option of dog ownership.
What is X(dogs) for you?
Control+F replace all, dog -> gun
Control+F replace all, euthaniz -> confiscat
What is X(guns) for you?
Obviously actual policy decisions have a continuous or at least graded set of options, rather than an extreme binary, but I find such questions revealing nevertheless. Despite the absurdity, it makes me ask myself: "How much better/worse do things have to get for me to reverse my position?"
Anyways, any thoughts on whether this has any value for quantifying preferences?
I don't fall for these kinds of traps usually because I also understand there are potentially second order effects to consider, and thus its not a pure linear tradeoff, even if we design the policy on that basis.
Maybe the population of dogs, despite killing kids, was also curbing some additional threat where, if the dogs were removed, would mostly replace the dogs as the primary threat to child livelihood.
In fact we have a very topical analogy for this, in the real world! WOLF REINTRODUCTION!
Ranchers killed off wolves because they were a threat to cattle herds, but this also allows the local deer, elk, etc. population to explode, which means overforaging of vegetation and other potential environmental harms, which is ALSO bad for the cattle on top of all else!
So they've brought back wolves in certain areas and the argument is that now the herbivore population is back into a 'natural' balance checked by the predators which is better for the local flora, which is better for the ecosystem as a whole.
Similarly, imagine we get rid of guns and criminal psychopaths with knives are suddenly springing up everywhere, stabbing children, unchecked by their natural predators.
So the Buridan point for being in favor of mass dog euthanasia is going to be relatively high, for me, and I would certainly explore other policy options before committing to it.
I'm a 2A guy but stabbings are a stupid example, you can stab a few folks that might die or shoot like 200 that will die in the same amount of time. America would be much "safer" if we yanked every gun. (It would mostly stop suicides and gang bangers, but statistically "safer") A better example is that we still have 1A while most of the world does not.
I'm really not convinced we'd be noticeably safer all told.
I still remember The Waukesha Christmas Parade Attack which killed 6 and injured 62. Trucks are relatively cheap, at least to rent, and can rack up a body count. If shootings get supplanted by trucks running down parades as the preferred modus operandi, I don't know that the death toll from the mass killings would be substantially less.
And I will consistently remind people that Guns can be 3D printed, so a sufficiently motivated psycho or criminal is going to be able to procure a weapon if they really want to. This will only get easier going forward.
And try estimating of the number of casualties that would be sustained in the process of confiscating firearms! If even 1% of firearms owners choose to resist, and 10% of those incidents result in at least one officer being injured or killed, we're talking somewhere on the order of 80,000 - 100,000 casualties over however many years. Compared to 21k homicides per year.
Is that reallllly worth the tradeoff, if we don't believe we can confiscate every firearm without incident?
Anyhow, I would redirect you to my recent policy proposal about banning and confiscating guns for Democrats only,, as my proposed compromise on this topic.
I mean you can look up the stats yourself. Murder and suicide rates in any country banning guns with the same or close GDP of the USA are a tiny fraction of what ours are. Do I think the tradeoff is worth it? Yes. But it is still there and obvious. Are you really linking me to a comment recommending only your opponents be disarmed? Come on man.
Do it by state.
There's virtually no correlation within the U.S. between gun ownership rates and crime, or murder rates, on the state level.
Likewise, Switzerland has the highest gun ownership rates in Europe, and is around the lowest for crime and murder too!
Literally, there is no good evidence that guns are the driving factor in crime and death. Likewise, very little evidence that increased gun control drives decreases in crime.
I can't even understate how weak the actual case for gun control as a policy is, compared to various other policies that could be implemented with less expense, less interference with peaceful citizens, and less risk of unrest and resistance in response!
My request is to disarm those people who assert that disarmament is good! Its about the fairest possible prescription.
If Democrats don't believe in Second Amendment rights, they shouldn't raise much fuss over waiving their said rights.
Yeah we have free travel of goods and people in the USA, banning a guns in chicago etc...was never ever going to work.
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You're playing games with statistics here. Based on your hypothesis here, we'd expect Switzerland (which has incredibly liberal gun laws) to be a hotbed of murder and suicide - but it isn't. Venezuela, on the other hand, has extremely tight gun laws, despite formerly being the homicide capital of South America. It isn't the guns that make people kill each other and you're being dishonest when you imply it.
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