Random Thoughts

Henry Spencer said:
Oh look, guns aren't a problem in the US!

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/13/health/gun-deaths-highest-40-years-cdc/index.html
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Gun deaths are at their highest in the country in 40 years. Meanwhile, population is at its highest in the country ever. It's almost as if when you have more people, you have more death. Funny that.

Interesting that the increase goes away if you factor out suicides, especially when a full 60% of gun-related deaths were suicides.

Violent crime rates in the US in 2016 were only 25% of what they were in 1996. I don't have figures for 2017 but I very much doubt there was a massive change. I wouldn't say there's a growing problem in the US - it's something that's seeing a rapid improvement, halving every ten years. This is in spite of gun ownership increasing in that time.

And I'll go back to this graph I made before, a comparison between murder rate per 100,000 people and gun ownership per 100 people, both per capita, for countries in Europe and North America:

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There is no correlation between murder rate and gun ownership. Despite the USA having three times as many guns as any other country in the list, its murder rate is much lower than countries like Ukraine, Russia, and Mexico; it could do with being much lower, but 25% of murders committed in the US don't even involve a gun (from the same source that CNN quoted), which would still put its murder rate higher than most of Europe, and that's not taking into account how many murders that were previously gun-related would still happen (because this figure is impossible to know).

So I'd say guns aren't a problem in the US. Suicide is, however, as the article shows - 60% of gun-related deaths were suicides.

In fact, if you take your focus away from guns and look at the general picture, this is even more apparent - in 2016, there were 5.35 murders per capita 100,000 people. There were 13.7 suicides per capita 100,000 people. The murder rate is decreasing, the suicide rate is increasing. For every murder, there are 2.56 suicides, and more tomorrow.


EDIT: I referred to "per capita" multiple times in the post; while it correctly identified that it was the ratio between the number of incidents and the number of people, it incorrectly described the scale - I've replaced those incidences with better terminology.
 
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DigitalDuck said:
So I'd say guns aren't a problem in the US. Suicide is, however, as the article shows - 60% of gun-related deaths were suicides.
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Are you saying that the 60% of gun-related deaths which were suicides should not be factored in when discussing whether stricter gun legislation ought to be introduced in the US?

That would only be a credible position if you could prove that the suicide rate would remain unchanged if stricter gun laws were legislated. I don’t see how you could prove that.

You could provide statistics of countries where suicides per one hundred thousand are much higher in certain countries with much lower gun ownership than the US, but perhaps there would be considerably higher suicides in those countries if there were more guns, or perhaps not, I’m only assuming.

I get the feeling that gun-related suicides don’t seem to regraded with the same degree of solemnity as gun-related murders, almost as though gun-related suicides are negligible in this debate because they’re taking only their own lives and so they don’t count. Of course they count. And therefore, must be factored in.

Yes, there’s no question that suicide is an epidemic in the US. So how can this be dealt with? Would introducing stricter gun laws reduce the number of gun-related suicides? Well, I’m inclined to say yes, the rate would reduce, although this is, as I stated above, only an assumption. But the assumption is based on pretty sound logic, namely, fewer guns fewer gun-related deaths.
 
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BalHan said:
Are you saying that the 60% of gun-related deaths which were suicides should not be factored in when discussing whether stricter gun legislation ought to be introduced in the US?

That would only be a credible position if you could prove that the suicides rates would remain unchanged if stricter gun laws were legislated. I don’t see how you could prove that.
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I'm saying exactly that. It's generally my position with regards to murder too, but triply so with regards to suicide. Obviously I can't prove that, but I've yet to hear anyone use the phrase "I would've killed myself, but I didn't have a gun".

And even on the off chance that it would have any significant effect on suicide rate, would it really be an effective solution? The problem isn't just that people are killing themselves, it's the fact that they want to do so in the first place.

BalHan said:
Yes, there’s no question that suicide is an epidemic in the US. So how can this be dealt with? Would introducing stricter gun laws reduce the number of gun-related suicides? Well, I’m inclined to say yes, the rate would reduce, although this is, as I stated above, only an assumption. But the assumption is based on pretty sound logic, namely, fewer guns fewer gun-related deaths.
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Fewer guns would result in fewer gun-related deaths.

Similarly, we could eliminate athlete's foot by removing everyone's legs.
 
BalHan said:
But the assumption is based on pretty sound logic, namely, fewer guns fewer gun-related deaths.
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The places with the most gun related murders in the US are the places with the most stringent gun laws. People who are out to kill aren't going to let the law get in their way, I don't see how taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens who only want to defend themselves will help.
 
KidMarine said:
The places with the most gun related murders in the US are the places with the most stringent gun laws. People who are out to kill aren't going to let the law get in their way, I don't see how taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens who only want to defend themselves will help.
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Actually, the opposite is true.

Here’s a link for a list of all US states in order of least to most gun violence:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/...nce-see-where-your-state-stacks-up/359395002/

Here’s a link for a list for all US states in order of most to least friendly gun control laws:

https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-laws-regulations-employment-us-states-2018-4?r=US&IR=T

Alabama has the most gun violence and has the friendliest gun control laws.

Rhodes Island has the strictest gun control laws and is placed 49th out of 50 when it comes to the most gun violence.

It’s a pretty open and shut case.
 
BalHan said:
Alabama has the most gun violence and has the friendliest gun control laws.

Rhodes Island has the strictest gun control laws and is placed 49th out of 50 when it comes to the most gun violence.

It’s a pretty open and shut case.
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Just to note: this is a fallacy - you can't select two data points from a set and say because they're at or near the top and bottom of both categories it describes the whole category. California and West Virginia are in entirely different places on each table, for example.

However, there is a moderate correlation between firearm homicide rate and "firearm friendliness" (about 0.65, although I only applied it to the rankings given as there's no objective value for "firearm friendliness"), which is no surprise.
 
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump administration moves to officially ban bump stocks that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly.
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Owners have 90 days to turn in their firearms/custom part.

Here's a good video showing how much faster bump stocks cause a semi auto to fire.

 
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Because I would probably otherwise forget. I think I'm just going to leave a little "Happy Holidays"/Choose your festive tradition in here. Hope everyone has a tolerable, if not good festive period.
 
Guppy said:
Happy New Year everyone! May this year finally be the one Shenmue 3 will shine physically upon our greasy hands.

Happy-New-Year.jpg
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The fact that we're actually getting a Shenmue 3 is still hard for me to believe. I'm still reeling from that fateful night in 2015 when the whole thing was announced.
 
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back in mid 2000s there was a show called digista on the NHK news channel (japanese, english dub). it was a strange show about graphic art and they use to showcase students and artists projects. i taped one episode vhs, i googled one artist from the show and found hes still creating strange stuff lol /\

http://shunsukesaito.com/doodle/
 
I never knew that there is a compatibility between different e-mail providers. For example: I opened an account in a, let's say, kickstarter project, and i should get after registration a automated e-mail with the activation-link, but this time nothing happens. I don't got a e-mail from then. I wrote to the support and they answered me and after changing e-mail adresses the problem i still there. But after opening an account on gmx and doing a test-account on that kickstarter project (Star Citizen) everything was fine. That's crazy. I never knew that before.
 
BalHan said:
Are you saying that the 60% of gun-related deaths which were suicides should not be factored in when discussing whether stricter gun legislation ought to be introduced in the US?
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Of course. An evil personal action doesn't directly affect society qua society, and since the wrongdoer is also the primary victim, there is absolutely no just retributive purpose for law in such cases. But disarming ordinary people who would be useful vis-à-vis preventing criminal aggression does negatively affect society qua society. For example, if east Asians girls were allowed to drive trucks in Europe, all those terrorist attacks where angry poor uneducated middle-eastern men drive trucks into large crowds could be prevented via interception, just like Rose in The Last Jedi. Because Rian Johnson said we don't win wars by killing what we hate, but by saving what we love.

BalHan said:
Yes, there’s no question that suicide is an epidemic in the US. So how can this be dealt with?
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By making life a hell of a lot better.

You think it's rational the way people are forced to treat people because of money and lies? Suicide is never ever ever a solution, and, in fact, makes everything unbearably worse for everyone else, but it's absolutely the least mysterious consequence of the perpetual mass waterboarding experience we call humanity. The time for revolution was yesterday.
 
watching lifeforce (1985) on netflix.

the alien has the best tits ive ever seen on tv
 
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