Nope!

Fudgeh!

Thanks, xara! 

Moved to Community

Anyway, now that I'm done with my anti-trolling rampage, time to get on topic.

I think this example does help Flint's case, but not necessarily as much as he claims.

Here's the issue: The gun rights advocate would claim that, without access to guns, only the criminals would have access to guns, perpetuating violence.  The opposition would claim that without guns... nobody would have guns!

So... how do you weigh these two against each other?  I say it's really on a case-by-case scenario.

Let's look at Washington DC.  How easy would it be for someone who wanted to obtain a weapon illegally to obtain it, despite the ban in Washington DC?  Pretty damn simple, actually.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the existence of other states with lax gun control laws meant that gun control policies in DC were pretty much useless.  So yeah, at local government levels, this is probably a terrible idea.

Now what about when we extrapolate this to a more national level?  Yes, it becomes more difficult to illegally obtain weapons (although a country that already has a huge supply of guns within its borders would have a huge supply for a short term illegal market).  The easier it is to illegally obtain weapons, the more likely it is that the pro-gun lobby is correct in their argument.  So the validity of the gun argument is less determined by the empirics of gun policy, and should instead focus more on other factors.

Border control is a good example.  If we had an island with 100 people that established gun control, it would probably be successful... the government just destroys industries in place... no illegal imports to worry about... any guns produced would be very crude weapons when compared to government weapons.  But if we're talking about an open economy with very terrible border control, gun control would be a bad idea, because foreign producers could more easily smuggle weapons into the domestic market.  The result: A gun control policy isn't a solution in itself... it requires a mix of policies, including local firearm confiscation, government purchasing of firearms, and border control policies, of levels potentially as significant as the war on drugs.

That brings an interesting irony.  The United States has a huge gun industry in place, including people, expertise, and facilities.  If private gun ownership were suddenly banned, the prevalence of current stockpiles during the legal market period would increase the domestic supply when firearms became illegal.  The result?  The very existence of the firearms industry helps to justify the pro-gun argument by undermining the strength of law enforcement of a gun control policy.

So... that means you're solely here to troll, then?  Since you're not in any way interested in actual debate... it really reduces the possible reasons for you actually being here.

Links!  Go!

Fudgeh?

You shouldn't have been posting things before becoming developer either... but that never stopped you.  X(

EDIT: Actually, no objection.  It's a terrible theme, and I wouldn't want to play that theme.  But since I'm not playing anyway, might as well subject you losers to the theme while I'm gone so it's out of the way and I'll be back in time for real mafia games.

Remember what I was mentioning above about injecting one's own political philosophy as the philosophy of the majority of a country, and using that as the system to determine who wins?  Yeah, that...

Note to... well... everyone:

"What candidate do you like" and "what candidate will win" are two completely different questions.  Remember, none of us can speak for the nation as a whole.  Although you may think a particular candidate or group of candidates may be terrible for some reason, it's just arrogant of those on either side to think that their judgement that a candidate is bad equates to that candidate being unable to appeal to others, possibly including a demographic which doesn't include that person.