Oct 142015
 

October is a very busy month for me at work. I’m working long hours, and don’t have much time on my breaks for typing. Hopefully in a week or two I can go back to more regular posting.

In the meantime, here’s a bit of interesting news – a gun store was held liable for illegally selling a gun! It’s sad that I’m excited by this, it shouldn’t be such a rarity. Anyway, from here:

The store was accused of encouraging an illegal straw purchase of the gun used in the crime. A straw purchase is when a gun is purchased in someone else’s name for another person who legally cannot own a gun.

Eighteen-year-old Julius Burton paid a 21-year-old friend $40 to come with him and buy a gun at the store. Surveillance video from 2009 showed Burton pointing to the Taurus semiautomatic he wanted and said, “That’s the one that I want.”

This was just a couple days after someone commented on my old Take Responsibility For Your Death Machine post. Coincidence?

(Yes. But still neat for me. I hope the 21-year-old faces consequences too.)

  2 Responses to “Update”

  1. Have you heard of the “Fast & Furious” scandal in the South West? The ATF instructed gun stores in cities near the Mexican border to -allow- straw purchases. Look it up, should make for some revelations.

    Incidentally as a Canadian I should tell you we have every wet-dream gun regulation Sarah Brady ever dreamed of up here. It doesn’t make a pinch of difference to the crime rate or the suicide rate. Nada. Zero.

  2. >Have you heard of the “Fast & Furious” scandal in the South West? The ATF instructed gun stores in cities near the Mexican border to -allow- straw purchases. Look it up, should make for some revelations.

    Yeah, of course, it was huge news down here.

    >It doesn’t make a pinch of difference to the crime rate or the suicide rate. Nada. Zero.

    First, I’m inclined to be sympathetic to your statement, as most gun regulation down in the USA is about identity politics and has very little to do with actually making things better. We get ridiculous things like guns and/or gun accessories being banned because they *look scary*. /sigh

    But. How to put this? I appreciate that you aren’t familiar with the customs of the internet culture I come from. But when you make assertions like “It doesn’t make a pinch of difference to the crime rate or the suicide rate” without any links to support, it makes you look un-credible. We don’t always require links to supporting studies, of course. But when those aren’t offered, the claims are generally phrased as “In my experience” or “It doesn’t seem to”. This highlights that you are offering personal data, rather than asserting claims about reality without providing backup (ie: spouting bullshit). The phrase “a pinch of difference” is an especially big red flag for “partisan rhetoric/bullshit.” Following it up with a reiteration of that naked assertion (“Nada”) immediately drops the credibility to zero. Following it up YET AGAIN with ANOTHER reiteration (“Zero.”) puts you in the negative-credibility zone. That is to say – you are so strongly asserting your point that I now believe you are overcompensating for the data being against you, and I now am inclined to believe that the regulations HAVE actually reduced crime and suicide rates. This is probably the opposite of what you wanted.

    The only context I can see your comment working in is if it was actually hyperbolic sarcastic humor, and the words “pinch”, “difference”, “crime rate”, “sucide rate”, “Nada”, and “Zero” each linked to a different and progressively stronger study showing that regulation drastically cut crime and sucide rates. That would be funny, and you’d get mad props. Playing it straight just makes me distrust this statement, and makes me disinclinded to trust future things you’ll say.

    tldr: links to studies that support your claim plz

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