This is actually a really good example for why we don't want to ban weapons: Genocides are often perpetrated by the country the victims actually belong to.
Examples: Germany under Nazism, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, -I'm fairly sure the list goes on.
I feel totally safe and I'm actually happy knowing that many of my neighbors have weapons. Especially here in Norway were I know there are strict background checks on who gets permits.
(For Americans: What I would do is start cooperating with NRA like Nordic countries has traditionally done with their local equivalents. Work not to prohibit guns but to promote safe storage and safe practices.)
Genocide is an extreme condition and a poor reason to extend gun ownership.
There is a very long list of countries that are doing better than fine and severely restricting gun ownership.
Long before it becomes the case that you need guns to defend your space, you may want to take a long hard look at the politics of your community / country.
in Europe, having guns widely dispersed throughout society would be considered about as expensive as it gets (and far more likely to kill the patient than offer a potential cure under very particular and exceptional conditions)
in Europe, having guns widely dispersed throughout society...
In Europe a number of countries has and has had guns widely dispersed throughout society since forever. A number of those countries are - and have used to be - very peaceful.
Source: Grew up in Europe. Could disassemble an assault rifle since I was a teenager (my father was assigned one as part of extended draft and kept that and a number of rounds at home. At some point he showed me since I was interested. He also used the opportunity to tell me how grateful I should be for peace and how he hoped he would never have to use it for real).
The EU also has far fewer beating deaths, stabbing deaths, etc. Do you attribute that to gun control as well?
I'm aware that Europeans have their own unique culture with their own unique unsupported assumptions and myths. That's not really a substitute for evidence.
Also, you dodged the question of whether we should ban other things that are vastly more dangerous than guns. Weird.
You seem generally confused about the distinction between correlation and causation
You seem generally confused about how reason works.
I provided strong evidence that the causal relationship is {violent tendencies} -> {gun violence, fist violence, knife violence}. Your theory {gun ownership} -> {gun violence} simply does not predict the observed result; it suggests that gun violence should be high, but knife violence should be the same.
That's evidence that your theory is false and mine is true. Though I don't think you really care.
Incidentally, we can find lots of things that Europe has which the US doesn't, and equally well attribute crime differences to that. For example, the US has lots of blacks and Europe doesn't. But I'm guessing you will dodge the question of whether you support the same conclusion in this case as well.
I didn't dodge anything - your whataboutism is in fact dodging so I ignored it
It's hardly fact dodging. I assert that you don't really care about danger, all you care about is banning the cultural expressions of cultures you oppose.
Dodging a question about other dangerous activities that your own culture favors provides strong evidence that you do, in fact, not really care about danger - only winning some culture war.
> Yet more whataboutism and aspergic levels of specious reasoning.
I find this to be quite far away from the ideals of this site:
Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Furthermore, using the name of a medical condition as an insult insults a whole group of unrelated individuals.
> Those two numbers are self-evidently not an unrelated random correlation - yet you seem to be claiming that they somehow are.
We have pointed out to you a number of exceptions that should raise serious doubts about the idea that gun ownership drives gun deaths. If this was the case then several countries in Europe would have similar problems, just on a smaller scale.
> IMO you seem to try to brush of the opinions of anyone who disagrees with you as stupid.
Well the numbers are overwhelmingly against you and a smart person would stop digging.
Your own figures show that the US is off the charts compared to EU on a) gun ownership b) gun deaths - it's a no brainer and therefore no useful debate on the merits/demerits. (I'm not going to get into US politics and it's really up to them if they want to have more deaths, but even they fall back on 2nd amendment and notions of tradition to try and justify gun ownership.)
This is actually a really good example for why we don't want to ban weapons: Genocides are often perpetrated by the country the victims actually belong to.
Examples: Germany under Nazism, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, -I'm fairly sure the list goes on.
I feel totally safe and I'm actually happy knowing that many of my neighbors have weapons. Especially here in Norway were I know there are strict background checks on who gets permits.
(For Americans: What I would do is start cooperating with NRA like Nordic countries has traditionally done with their local equivalents. Work not to prohibit guns but to promote safe storage and safe practices.)