The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[Sommerswerd]

So you want me studied as a person as a societal disease?

Heck, even them illegals should have criminal justice protections in their rights and privacies from the datas, rather than those of a contagion.

Sorry I thought you were responding to me not the folks talking about diseases.

 

[Farm Boy]

Fair enough! Either way, gun-users are not the purview of the CDC anymore than illegal immigrants committing crimes are. Crimes are the purview of law enforcement with the relevant protections from law enforcement to apply! I guess I got confused in the exchange if that's not something you truck with. I'll mark it down.

 

[Broken_Erika]

People are a societal disease! If you get rid of all people, then you wouldn't have a gun problem!

 

[Sommerswerd]

People are a societal disease! If you get rid of all people, then you wouldn't have a gun problem!

Now where have I heard that before... Oh yes I remember...

 

[Lexicus]

Either way, gun-users are not the purview of the CDC

Gun violence = / = gun users

 

[Uberfrog]

Fair enough! Either way, gun-users are not the purview of the CDC anymore than illegal immigrants committing crimes are. Crimes are the purview of law enforcement with the relevant protections from law enforcement to apply!

Again, I don’t think anyone is suggesting that gun ownership be something that the CDC take responsibility for. To be clear:-

Firearm injuries and deaths are a public health issue.

Firearm crime is a law enforcement issue.

Firearm ownership is something else entirely.

This isn’t a one-dimensional issue, so I don’t see why the relevant data collection and policy-making should think of it as one. The way I see it the CDC and the FBI (or whoever else compiles statistics for crimes) can both provide valuable data.

 

[Farm Boy]

Who you task with collecting, retaining, and disseminating certain data defines what data is collected and how, which later informs its use. Since if it's collected, it will be used. And even if it's not collected, if you collect enough other data, it will be inferred, and then used. Which is why I bring up algorithmic policing.

Injuries and deaths involving firearms as a tool are, in large part, criminal acts. Homicide is not legal barring affirmative defense, suicide is not legal, itself being the fatal expression of an underlying disease(likely) or crime. Legal possession of a firearm is indeed something else all together. Accidental deaths, I'll have to think about. How to treat specific forms of injuries, I'll probably give you. How to address crimes, tangentially touched, no.

 

[rah]

Some might argue that no one has ever been convicted for suicide so once it's been determined to be a suicide, law enforcement is no longer involved.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Some might argue that no one has ever been convicted for suicide so once it's been determined to be a suicide, law enforcement is no longer involved.

Suicide is effectively, in most cases, attempted insurance fraud, so law enforcement should remain involved.

 

[Lexicus]

Some might argue that no one has ever been convicted for suicide so once it's been determined to be a suicide, law enforcement is no longer involved.

Using crack is illegal but would anyone argue that crack overdoses are not in the purview of the CDC?

I mean, seriously, let's consider this here. Imagine if we had people, tens of thousands of people per year, dying from crack overdoses. What would we say if someone actually came right out and said "I don't want the CDC to study this because their research might indicate that the best way to reduce crack overdose deaths is to implement policies that I don't like"?

 

[rah]

Using crack is illegal but would anyone argue that crack overdoses are not in the purview of the CDC?

I mean, seriously, let's consider this here. Imagine if we had people, tens of thousands of people per year, dying from crack overdoses. What would we say if someone actually came right out and said "I don't want the CDC to study this because their research might indicate that the best way to reduce crack overdose deaths is to implement policies that I don't like"?

I actually have no issue with the CDC studying it. Which is why I made the comment I did (to support that). I believe if there were fewer guns, we'd have fewer suicides regardless of any legality of it.

 

[Lexicus]

I actually have no issue with the CDC studying it. Which is why I made the comment I did (to support that). I believe if there were fewer guns, we'd have fewer suicides regardless of any legality of it.

Oh I know all that. My comment wasn't directed at you per se; I was just using what you said as a springboard. We have two posters here in this thread who are basically taking the position I described in that post, with respect to guns rather than crack obviously. You are not one of them.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Huh? Taking a gun and shooting yourself in the face isn't a violent act? What if it's done in front of your girlfriend? If a guy pulls up to the parking lot where some kids are playing baseball, pulls out a gun and shoots himself in front of all the kids and parents... you don't consider that an act of violence? If a guy commits a murder-suicide of his family, the murders are violence but the subsequent suicide isn't? What if the hostage negotiators and SWAT are outside the door trying to talk him down as he holds his family hostage (or has killed them)? Him shooting himself to avoid capture by police isn't a violent act?

Obviously can't speak for Commodore, but I wouldn't consider any of those examples to be violence in the relevant sense.

 

[Samson]

Obviously can't speak for Commodore, but I wouldn't consider any of those examples to be violence in the relevant sense.

You are saying that suicide could be considered violence in some senses, but not when considering if the CDC should be analysing the epidemiology of gun violence, as opposed to the Dept. Justice? That seems odd to me, as this particular case is more like a disease than say gang violence. Care to explain?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Obviously can't speak for Commodore, but I wouldn't consider any of those examples to be violence in the relevant sense.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the position you are taking is that you agree that all the examples I gave are, strictly speaking, "violent" or "violence", however you do not think they fall into your perception of the term "gun violence", where "gun violence" is more about the concept than the actual words in the phrase, and the concept, loosely speaking, is any number of certain crimes involving the shooting of guns at other people with criminal intent. Is that a fair assessment of your position?

If I am correct then I understand your position. Again, if I am correct I'd be interested to hear whether you consider armed robbery, committed with a gun to be "gun violence".

 

[Manfred Belheim]

You are saying that suicide could be considered violence in some senses, but not when considering if the CDC should be analysing the epidemiology of gun violence, as opposed to the Dept. Justice? That seems odd to me, as this particular case is more like a disease than say gang violence. Care to explain?

All I'm saying is that the word "violent" has multiple definitions, related but not identical. Shooting yourself in the face is obviously a violent act, if in nothing more than the sound it will make, but it's not "violence". I could be in a state of violent emotional distress, due to a combination of a violently upset stomach and that fact that I'd just crushed my thumb whilst violently hammering in a nail, but none of that would be "violence" in the relevant sense. This seems to be Semantics: The Thread.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the position you are taking is that you agree that all the examples I gave are, strictly speaking, "violent" or "violence", however you do not think they fall into your perception of the term "gun violence", where "gun violence" is more about the concept than the actual words in the phrase, and the concept, loosely speaking, is any number of certain crimes involving the shooting of guns at other people with criminal intent. Is that a fair assessment of your position?

If I am correct then I understand your position. Again, if I am correct I'd be interested to hear whether you consider armed robbery, committed with a gun to be "gun violence".

Like I said it's not about the "gun" qualifier, it's about the fact that "violent/ce" has multiple definitions. In this case the violence that matters is the use of damaging/painful physical force against others in some criminal endeavour. Shooting yourself in the face or having a painful bout on the toilet doesn't count towards that.

As for the latter. It's definitely the threat of violence, not sure I'd call it violence in and of itself. But since the threat of violence is a crime anyway, I'd have no problem with that being counted as "gun violence" in crime statistics, or "violent crime" in general.

 

[Uberfrog]

Who you task with collecting, retaining, and disseminating certain data defines what data is collected and how, which later informs its use. Since if it's collected, it will be used. And even if it's not collected, if you collect enough other data, it will be inferred, and then used. Which is why I bring up algorithmic policing.

Injuries and deaths involving firearms as a tool are, in large part, criminal acts. Homicide is not legal barring affirmative defense, suicide is not legal, itself being the fatal expression of an underlying disease(likely) or crime. Legal possession of a firearm is indeed something else all together. Accidental deaths, I'll have to think about. How to treat specific forms of injuries, I'll probably give you. How to address crimes, tangentially touched, no.

I appreciate this point, but I'm not sure what you are proposing as an alternative. I agree that crime prevention is not the remit of CDC, but the issue of public safety and gun policy clearly extends beyond gun violence.

You are right that any data collection is inherently selective, and the results you get will be influenced by what data is recorded. But surely that bias is somewhat mitigated if different data is collected by multiple independent agencies? If we are asking what is the best policy on gun control, surely it is better to look at the impact of firearms across a broad range of areas of public interest. In order to make statements, such as "injuries and deaths involving firearms as a tool are, in large part, criminal acts," it is necessary to have this data in the first place!

The example of algorithmic policing is an instructive one as to the perils of using poorly designed data-driven procedures in law enforcement. But I don't see it as a warning against the collection of data, but rather the importance of a proper analytical and ethical approach to evidence-based policy instead of blithely sub-contracting it to flashy tech companies like PredPol.

Bad policies can be made with or without data, but I don't think that's a reason to not collect data in the first place.

 

[Lexicus]

The example of algorithmic policing is an instructive one as to the perils of using poorly designed data-driven procedures in law enforcement. But I don't see it as a warning against the collection of data, but rather the importance of a proper analytical and ethical approach to evidence-based policy instead of blithely sub-contracting it to flashy tech companies like PredPol.

The problem with this is not Big Data per se but data utopianism, or the idea that data by itself will give us answers, and that we won't need politics anymore because the data will just unambiguously show the way.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Fair enough! Either way, gun-users are not the purview of the CDC anymore than illegal immigrants committing crimes are. Crimes are the purview of law enforcement with the relevant protections from law enforcement to apply! I guess I got confused in the exchange if that's not something you truck with. I'll mark it down.

My years of chatting on these forums with all you fine folks has taught me that there is a tried, true pattern that often emerges, which generally derails the discussion from anything meaningful. I mentioned this before... I'm talking about the "technical versus practical" tangent.

You have one side arguing the practical aspects of the issue, using shorthand terms and phrases and mostly talking about concepts while the other "side" is hammering some technical aspect of the issue, pointing out the precise definitions and such, with both sides talking past each other. The whole thing generally just devolves into the "technicals" block-citing definitions of words and such, while the "practicals" accuse them of engaging in semantics and pedantry.

I'm guilty of it myself... multiple counts... and nowadays I try to remember to quickly identify the tangent and resist diving into it if I can. Its not always easy. Another way of trying to get past it is for the practicals to acknowledge that the technicals are in-fact technically correct, so that maybe the technicals can move on to discussing the actual merits of the practicals' arguments... but usually that doesn't happen, so I've learned to just try to steer clear when I see those arguments developing.

 

[Farm Boy]

But I don't see it as a warning against the collection of data

Then the horse is out of the barn.