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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30023 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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Gun control in Chicago has failed. Specifically, it's failed to control access to guns, which are regularly used to commit crimes. The question of whether or not reduced access to firearms would have an impact on crime rates is not answered by Chicago. And, of course, there is the evergreen fact that one of the most crime-ridden part of the country is the Deep South, which has permissive gun laws and a hoplophilic culture. With that in mind it's hard to take idea that the solution is yet more guns seriously.

The odds of a fire extinguisher protecting you from a house fire of any kind, let alone an arsonist, is incredibly low...

You see the subtle error in reasoning here?

No. You're going to have to spell it out for me. The number of times of a tragic misunderstanding, accident, or interpersonal dispute involving a fire extinguisher led to severe injury or death is functionally zero. If your fire extinguisher had a greater chance of exploding and killing you than it did of stopping a fire, keeping one in your kitchen would be dumb.

And to be frank, for most people a home fire extinguisher is a prop.

Speaking of, NH has some of the most permissive laws and also a negligible homicide rate. Again kinda makes the point for me.

I agree. The actual underlying problem is culture - most Americans have a weirdly positive view of violence, of which the aforementioned hoplophilia is merely one manifestation. That doesn't change the fact that weapons are a major facilitator for homicide (and other crimes and suicide), else people wouldn't bother. Not to mention, mass reeducation is likely to be both unpopular and of dubious effectiveness, so the policy remedies in that direction are pretty weak.

The number of times of a tragic misunderstanding, accident, or interpersonal dispute involving a fire extinguisher led to severe injury or death is functionally zero.

There is some dispute about that re the Capitol Putsch, which would fall under the most literal definition of 'interpersonal dispute'.

Are you referring to the completely made up and fake story about Brian Sicknick being hit with a fire extinguisher? Well, if your point is that people can lie to provide fictional evidence in favor of their policy goals, you certainly have made it.

That's why I said there was "some dispute" regarding the matter.

And, of course, there is the evergreen fact that one of the most crime-ridden part of the country is the Deep South, which has permissive gun laws and a hoplophilic culture. With that in mind it's hard to take idea that the solution is yet more guns seriously.

The South isn't notably more hoplophilic than e.g. Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or Alaska. Those all have loose gun laws.

Indeed, the South has LOWER gun ownership rates than those named states.

And yet those states are significantly less violent than the national average, let alone the South.

So if you're trying to claim a correlation I would bet you can find a stronger one than that.

This is kind of the glaring issue in the U.S., where homicide rates simply do not follow from gun ownership rates on a state-by-state basis. And violence is, of course, concentrated in cities. So in practice, gun control laws punish suburbs and rural areas for urbanites' bad behavior.

Quite unfair, no?

No. You're going to have to spell it out for me. The number of times of a tragic misunderstanding, accident, or interpersonal dispute involving a fire extinguisher led to severe injury or death is functionally zero. If your fire extinguisher had a greater chance of exploding and killing you than it did of stopping a fire, keeping one in your kitchen would be dumb.

The point is that because an event is rare that doesn't mean that a precaution against it is unjustified.

I suspect that house fires are actually rarer than most violent crime these days. The rate of deaths due to fire is certainly on the decline

And yet, the impact of a fire, if it happens, is massive enough that the risk probably shouldn't be ignored. Clipping the tail risk is a good idea.

You wouldn't dismiss somebody as a paranoid wacko for keeping fire-suppression tools around should the need arise, even if the odds are infinitesimal.

But it is seemingly easy to say that a guy who keeps a gun around is being paranoid, without even grappling with the actual risk imposed if you do happen to be victimized by a criminal.

So mitigating the risks of harm due to fire = keeping a fire extinguisher around.

Mitigating the risk of harm due to crime = ?

Thinking stochastically, there are steps you can take to minimize the risk of crime/fire happening, but given how much damage can be done, and given the fact that you can never get the risk down to zero, what steps is it reasonable to take?

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