More Macaca Caca

[Hogeye]

When guns are around, more people die.

The stats on genocide disprove this. You are attempting to counter hard numbers on genocide with inconsequential exceptions. 170 million murdered versus 82.

If JPFO's thesis is correct, then comparatively piddling numbers of accidents and private crime using guns is inconsequential. That's the beauty of their argument - it bypasses all the conflicting stats on crime, which is a molehill compared to the mountain of genocide.

Hate will always find victims, armed or otherwise.

Yes, I agree. But the question here is whether victim disarmament makes genocide more likely, whether being armed is a deterrent to such murders. This is a macro claim - saying that guns didn't succeed in such-and-such a case is insufficient to disprove it.

Does anyone want to dispute the praxeological argument? (That, ceteris paribus, people prefer more of a good to less?) Has anyone found inaccuracies on the long list of gun control laws followed by genocides linked above? Does anyone deny that, if you want to mass murder people, it is rational to disarm them first so they don't shoot back? Can anyone find a single case of genocide in the 20th century or later where gun control was not used to disarm the victims?

I'm still waiting for a rational argument against the JPFO thesis that doesn't hinge on a strawman.

[Dardedar]

Hitler didn't go through Switzerland because the Panzer tank units couldn't go through the mountain passes.

DAR
Thanks Barbara. I figured that claim was horseshit but I didn't want to take the time to check that one out.

[Dardedar]

When guns are around, more people die.

The stats on genocide disprove this.

DAR
You don't have stats on genocide. You have an idiotic claim, or perhaps some kind of foggy undefined casual relationship claim for which you don't provide a scrap of evidence to back it up.

You are attempting to counter hard numbers on genocide...

DAR
Hard numbers regarding genocide have nothing to do with gun control until you show otherwise. If you have an argument beyond a golly gee assertion, trot it out. You tried Hitler and I checked and even gun nuts won't support you.

with inconsequential exceptions.

DAR
Only in some kind of sick infantile upside down amoral anarchist fantasy land is the following an "inconsequential exception":

"the rate of firearm deaths among children under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined."

I'm still waiting for a rational argument against the JPFO thesis that doesn't hinge on a strawman.

DAR
Of course you are. Sorry, that's not how it works. Start with making your claim, clearly, (borrowing my "facilitated" gets you nothing specific) and then try to back it up. I don't have time to construct your arguments for you and then knock them down like in the past.

The following is childish blather not worth the time of an adult:

"People killed in the 20th century by their own governments after being disarmed by gun control laws: 170 million."

But worse, it is foggy as hell. Just the way you like it. It looks like it is trying to imply that gun control in some way caused the death of 170 million people but of course you will cry about straw if anyone tries to swat at what your foggy rant looks like it trying to say. So clear your vague claim up, whatever it is, then back it up. If it doesn't fall from it's own weight I may give it a kick.

D.

[Hogeye]

Gun control laws facilitated the death of 170 million people. That statement is clearly stated and true. Apparently you don't like it because you can't refute it. You asked me to rephrase without using the word "facilitated." Okay: Gun control laws contributed to the death of 170 million people. Or how about this: Every known genocide in the 20th century was preceeded by the legal disarming of the victims. Why don't you admit that these statements are true, or deny them, rather than whine about how you'd rather that I make some other claim?

What do these statements show? That victim disarmament laws were enacted prior to every modern genocide. And: If your going to commit genocide, it is rational to disarm the victims so they can't easily fight back. One could almost argue that gun control laws were a necessary condition for genocide in the 20th century.

I guess you overlooked the link I gave earlier to back up my claim: Here's a list of 20th century genocides and the victim disarmament laws which contributed to them.

I really should order that book "Death by Gun Control." Here are some factoids you may enjoy:

In the 20th Century:
• Governments murdered four times as many civilians as were killed in all the international and domestic wars combined.
• Governments murdered millions more people than were killed by common criminals.

How could governments kill so many people? The governments had the power - and the people, the victims, were unable to resist. The victims were unarmed.

The claim (supported by the link above) that at least 170 million people were killed by their own governments during the 20th century is a straightforward proposition. There is nothing childish about it. Do you agree that it is true? What would be childish is to refuse to admit the truth of a proposition because you're afraid of where it may lead you - what it may imply. I suggest that you admit obvious/supported truths, and try to "catch" me on any subsequent invalid inferences. For example, if I claimed that gun control laws were a sufficient condition for genocide, you could easily cite counterexamples.

[Dardedar]

Apparently you don't like it because you can't refute it.

DAR
I don't like it because you can't/won't define it.

What do these statements show? That victim disarmament laws were enacted prior to every modern genocide.

DAR
If that were true, and I very much doubt it is, you would have a correlation, not what you are trying for, some kind of fuzzy undefined causation.
I looked at your link but was not sufficiently impressed with your source to spend more than a few minutes. For some reason you attract or attach yourself to quackery and fill your head with this garbage constantly. This no doubt leads to your very unpersuasive conclusions. You might consider weening yourself off of the crack-pots and work your way down to the rightwing nutbars.

As I said:
"...clear your vague claim up, whatever it is, then back it up. If it doesn't fall from it's own weight I may give it a kick."

Incidentally, if one were to pretend that your claim (whatever it is) were true, what would it suggest to a country like Canada (which has very sensible and successful gun control laws)? That they recind some of their gun control laws so that the government doesn't committ genocide against it's people? Do you have any idea how insane you appear most of the time?

D.



Amazon sells a framed copy of this issue cover, for $92.

[Doug]

Every known genocide in the 20th century was preceeded by the legal disarming of the victims.

DOUG
This is the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. That one event precedes another does not show that the first event caused the second.

"Every known genocide in the 20th century was preceeded by the widespread use of indoor plumbing for the perpetrators."

True, but it hardly establishes cause.

Besides, I think your claim is false. Not every 20th century genocide was preceded by dismarming the victims.

For example:
Milosevic's genocidal campaign against the Croats was a massacre because of the superior arms of his Serbian army, not because the Croats were unarmed.

==========
Here.
Aided by Serbian guerrillas in Croatia, Milosevic's forces invaded in July 1991 to 'protect' the Serbian minority. In the city of Vukovar, they bombarded the outgunned Croats for 86 consecutive days and reduced it to rubble. After Vukovar fell, the Serbs began the first mass executions of the conflict, killing hundreds of Croat men and burying them in mass graves.



The response of the international community was limited. The U.S. under President George Bush chose not to get involved militarily, but instead recognized the independence of both Slovenia and Croatia. An arms embargo was imposed for all of the former Yugoslavia by the United Nations. However, the Serbs under Milosevic were already the best armed force and thus maintained a big military advantage.

The end of 1991 brokered a U.S.-sponsored cease-fire agreement between the Serbs and Croats fighting in Croatia.

[Hogeye]

Hogeye> Every known genocide in the 20th century was preceeded by the legal disarming of the victims.

Doug> This is the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

It would be if I had concluded that legal disarming caused genocide. But I made no such inference.
(I commend your committment to critical thinking. Good going, though it doesn't apply here. I also commend you for taking the bull by the horns, so to speak, rather than, e.g. pretending you don't understand the word "facilitate" or resorting to ad hom.)

Here's an inference I will make: There is a strong correlation between gun control laws and genocide.

Milosevic's genocidal campaign against the Croats was a massacre because of the superior arms of his Serbian army, not because the Croats were unarmed.

"Yugoslavia has had "gun control" at least since 1965." - NRA Director Neal Knox link

Then again, another guy who's supposed to be some kind of expert wrote:

I do not have that history readily available.  As Yugoslavia was a communist country from about 1946 to the late 1980's, I suspect that private ownership of firearms was mostly banned.  Meanwhile, the Yugoslav government was
well-armed and able to maintain "peace" among otherwise hostile factions by force.  Once the communist government lost power and the factions were able to identify themselves and move for political autonomy, then it became clear that those persons with access to former-government weapons could terrorize the civilians in their particular regions. ...

Finding the history of "gun control" in any foreign nation is a challenging research project which the authors of "Lethal Laws" have not yet undertaken for Yugoslavia.  We are very interested in any research findings on Yugoslavia or any other nation on this issue. link

Knox didn't give any specifics or citations. The Rabbi's honest I don't know; it's hard to get that info seems more credible. I did get one guy, a Brian Martin, who claimed that Yugoslavia even armed "the people!" (link) Like Knox, he gave no evidence whatsoever.

Doug, the quote and link you gave doesn't seem to help at all in answering the question did Yugoslavia have gun control. The reason for the Croats being "outgunned" may be gun control laws - the article doesn't say. I strongly suspect that Yugoslavia did have gun control laws, being an authoritarian state and all, and judging from the subsequent genocide. But for now, we don't really know until/unless we can come up with some evidence one way or the other.

More google-research gives some evidence for the affirmative, and incidentally explaining Croat resistence described in your link:
The article OF HOLOCAUSTS AND GUN CONTROL says:

Disarming the Yugoslavians lowered the cost of maintaining himself in power, which Tito did by having tens of thousands of his countrymen shot during his reign.[117] When old Yugoslavia came unstuck in the late 1980s, its armies and equipment--the most formidable in the region--devolved to the former nation's ethnic constituents. Because the Yugoslavian army had been mostly Serbian, the Serbians inherited enough munitions to face down the United States, NATO, the United Nations, and finally even ex-President Jimmy Carter's freelance diplomacy, and to continue the conquest of Bosnia. Muslims (Bosnians) had never figured much in the Yugoslavian army, and thanks to a very well-intentioned international arms embargo whose purpose was to assure that gasoline not be splashed on an already raging fire,[118] they remained largely disarmed. Such ethnic cleansing has largely ceased today, thanks to both United Nations intervention and to the surreptitious arming of the Muslim population with the tacit approval, welcome though many years late, of the United States.

It was a different story entirely in Croatia. There was substantial Croatian representation in the old Yugoslavian army--Tito himself was a Croat. Though not nearly as formidable as the Serbs, the Croats did have arms.

The pertinent citation: [117.]See, e.g., MILOVAN DJILAS, TITO: THE STORY FROM INSIDE (1980); Nikolai Tolstoy, Bare Bones: The Massacres at Kocevje, NEW REPUBLIC, Dec. 24, 1990, at 16; Chuck Sudetic, Piles of Bones in Yugoslavia Point to Partisan Massacres, N.Y. TIMES, July 9, 1990, at A-6.

From a page about the book "Lethal Laws": "Although discovered by the authors too late for inclusion in Lethal Laws, the gun control laws in both Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia were similar to gun control laws which have facilitated genocide in other nations."

Hmmm. Doug, your attempt at a counter-example is looking less and less likely.

Darrel asks: If my claim were true, what would it mean for Canada (with relatively strict gun control laws)? Answer: It would mean that Canada has a greater danger of genocide than would be the case if it had weaker (or no) victim disarmament laws.

[Doug]

Hogeye> Every known genocide in the 20th century was preceeded by the legal disarming of the victims.

Doug> This is the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

It would be if I had concluded that legal disarming caused genocide. But I made no such inference.

DOUG
You sure seemed to be implying one.

Here's an inference I will make: There is a strong correlation between gun control laws and genocide.

OK, that's your claim. Show it.

I had provided counterevidence.

Milosevic's genocidal campaign against the Croats was a massacre because of the superior arms of his Serbian army, not because the Croats were unarmed.

"Yugoslavia has had "gun control" at least since 1965." - NRA Director Neal Knox link

Then again, another guy who's supposed to be some kind of expert wrote:

DOUG
Expert? He seems like an idiot. I just showed you a news report in which it was reported that the Serbs and the Croats each had arms and they were shooting at each other, etc. So what is this crap about dismarmament?

Doug, the quote and link you gave doesn't seem to help at all in answering the question did Yugoslavia have gun control. The reason for the Croats being "outgunned" may be gun control laws - the article doesn't say.

DOUG
It DOES say that the Croats had arms. So much for your disarmament theory. Later, there was a cease fire arranged so the two sides would stop shooting. Nobody was disarmed. Your sources that LIE and say that the Croats were disarmed are just that: liars.

Some reading recommended here.
2000

Martin Sablic, The Final Verdict in the Name of the People ’, Vukovar, May 30 , 2000

The book is a collection of documents that bear witness to the abuse endured by Croatian POWs in Serbian prison camps. Many of the POWs, like the author himself, were convicted to death but were later exchanged.

DOUG
POW's? How is there a war and prisoners of it if the people don't have arms?

=========
1999

Ivica Mlivoncic, The Crime with the Seal: Genocide and War Crimes of Bosnian-Muslim forces over the Bosnian Croats from 1992 to 1994 (1999)

The book contains a list of 1606 Croats murdered in the areas of conflict, primarily in Central Bosnia. The list enumerates 968 civilians, among them 120 children; the rest were captured HVO ( Croatian Defense Council) soldiers- though, these are not the final numbers. The book contains a list of Muslims, suspects & "candidates" for the role of war-crimes perpetrators.
===================
DOUG
Areas of conflict? Croatian Soldiers? Sounds like both sides had arms. It IS true that the Croatians had less access to arms than the Serbs, but they still had arms.


I also know from personal interviews with Guatemalan indigenous Mayans that the genocide against native Americans there in Guatemala has been taking place for decades despite guerrilla activity and armed resistance.

[Dardedar]

Here's an inference I will make: There is a strong correlation between gun control laws and genocide.

DAR
Oh, a "strong correlation." You think stronger than indoor plumbing? What if there is a connection with breast feeding? Mailing packages?

Let's see. Probably 95% of countries have some kind of gun control. So almost every country that has had genocide (very much a minority of the total), has had gun control of some kind. That's rather mundane. But wait, the much larger majority of countries have NOT had genocide while at the same time having gun control. Your source provides a list of countries with gun control and genocide. The Nazi example is the only one I looked up and the guncite article rebutted that one. But it contained nuance and you don't like that. A much longer list could be made of countries that have gun control but have had no genocide. So there seems to be a stronger correlation between gun control and no genocide.

Another distinct likelihood is that a genocide occuring in a gun saturated society could cause more deaths, and quicker. Which goes back to my point of more guns, more death. I am for sensible and fairly strong gun control laws, similar to Canada, Austrialia, most of Europe. This is because they have very good results that put America to shame. I don't think the US is ready for this however. Too many gun nuts and misinformed.

If my claim were true, what would it mean for Canada (with relatively strict gun control laws)? Answer: It would mean that Canada has a greater danger of genocide than would be the case if it had weaker (or no) victim disarmament laws.

DAR
Comparing the United States, Canada and a hundred similar nations to under-developed nations consisting of military dictatorships fighting tribal coalitions is just paranoid and asinine.

D.

See a clip of Hogeye's gun paradise here, but imagine it with real guns.

[Dardedar]

Remember, Hogeye's source is JPFO. A little background:

***
So a few years ago a handful of Jews set up an organization called Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and their principal activity has been to proclaim loudly that gun control is not a Jewish but a "Nazi" scheme. They run around the country announcing, "We're Jews, and we're against gun control." They also buy advertisements in gun magazines which assert that Hitler's first move after he became chancellor of Germany was to round up all privately owned firearms, so that the German people could not rebel.

That is the opposite of the truth. Actually, Hitler's government abolished many restrictions on buying and carrying firearms which had been established by the preceding, liberal government. The Nazis believed in self-defense and encouraged firearms ownership and proficiency among German civilians. Hitler was the most popular leader the Germans have had in this century, and he was not afraid of his fellow citizens. He rode slowly through crowds of cheering Germans in an open car. No bulletproof glass, no police screening of the people who were allowed to shake his hand, no metal detectors. Quite a difference from Bill Clinton!

When I first encountered the lies of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, I went to the trouble of digging up the original German law digests from the 1920s and 1930s which contained the exact texts of the German laws were firearms laws, published at the time the enacted, and I translated along with them into English and published my English translations photo-facsimile copies of the original German laws. And yet the Jews have in confusing succeeded many patriots -- an all too easy task, unfortunately -- was the and convincing them that Hitler father of all gun-grabbers, that Jews and that in America are divided on the issue of gun control, people who propose new gun control laws are likely to be admirers of Hitler.

Much more here:

Is Gun Control a Nazi Scheme?

Bonus:
"It was not until 1945, when the communist and democratic victors of the Second World War had installed occupation governments to rule over the conquered Germans that German citizens were denied the right to armed self-defense."

DAR
Then Genocide broke out!

A JPFO tract:



Excerpt: "The Universal Declaration sets the standard of "human rights" for a planned one-world government. It's a terrifying standard. Most of the rights that Americans take for granted are missing from it. While it takes individual rights away, the Universal Declaration empowers power groups and government to control nearly every facet of human life. Shamelessly the U.N. trumpets its Universal Declaration as the blueprint for a future one-world socialist regime."

Standard anti-UN, one world conspiracy crap.

[Hogeye]

So almost every country that has had genocide (very much a minority of the total), has had gun control of some kind.

Every country, as far as we can determine. 100%, in the 20th century.

Your source provides a list of countries with gun control and genocide. The Nazi example is the only one I looked up and the guncite article rebutted that one.

No, all sources confirm that Germany had gun control laws, and all but a few holocaust deniers confirm that the Nazis committed genocide. (Your Guncite article rebutted some frivolous claims that I never made. Cut the strawmen, dude!)

A much longer list could be made of countries that have gun control but have had no genocide.

Agreed.

So there seems to be a stronger correlation between gun control and no genocide.

??? No; 100% of the States in which genocide occurred had victim disarmament laws. Less than 100% of the States without genocide had gun control laws. Hence there is a stronger correlation between gun control and genocide than gun control and no genocide. Furthermore (to pile on), 0% zero nada none of the States without victim disarmament laws had genocide in the 20th century. Thus there is a perfect positive correlation, 1, of no gun control and no genocide.

Another distinct likelihood is that a genocide occuring in a gun saturated society could cause more deaths, and quicker.

But that never happened in the 20th century. Thus the likelihood is zero. But if we weaken your claim somewhat, dropping the genocide part, to: A gun saturated society is likely to have more gun deaths than a society with moderate gun ownership, I'd agree with the hypothesis. I conjecture that (gun ownership rate)X(gun deaths) would be a "U" shaped graph. I.e. with low gun ownership rates, there would be a lot of criminal and government killing of people; with moderate rates both private criminality and govt thuggery would go down, and with a very high ownership rate private killings would increase. But genocide by govt killings dwarf private killings, so there is more danger from too few guns (in private hands) than too many. The U would be higher on the left, more like a reverse J. That's my conjecture. A project for future sociology grad students.

I am for sensible and fairly strong gun control laws, similar to Canada, Austrialia, most of Europe. This is because they have very good results that put America to shame.

Crime rates have gone through the roof in England and Australia since they strengthened their victim disarmament laws, last I looked. Especially "hot" burgulary - robbing homes when people are there. But you're missing the JPFO point: the number of private killings are miniscule compared to killing by governments of their own people. A small reduction in the probability of genocide resulting from gun ownership has an expectancy of saving many more lives than any resulting reduction in private crime or accidents from authoritarian gun restrictions. 170 million vs. maybe 1 million. The number of deaths by private crime is miniscule compared to the number of deaths by government. The history of the 20th century makes that quite clear.

Comparing the United States, Canada and a hundred similar nations to under-developed nations consisting of military dictatorships fighting tribal coalitions is just paranoid and asinine.

But I'm not. I am comparing them to Nazi Germany, China (on Tibet), Russia on Ukraine, ... Developed States commit genocide, too. The US commits mass murder on Afghani people and Iraqi people, has massacred Branch Davidians, and has the highest incarceration rate in the world of its own people. It's not outlandish to think the rulers may murder their own "domestic enemies." Ask a Muslim male what he thinks.

[Doug]

So there seems to be a stronger correlation between gun control and no genocide.

??? No; 100% of the States in which genocide occurred had victim disarmament laws. Less than 100% of the States without genocide had gun control laws. Hence there is a stronger correlation between gun control and genocide than gun control and no genocide. Furthermore (to pile on), 0% zero nada none of the States without victim disarmament laws had genocide in the 20th century. Thus there is a perfect positive correlation, 1, of no gun control and no genocide.

DOUG
I think you need to brush up on your statistics class notes.

In addition, there is a difference between a country having disarmament laws and a country having an actually disarmed set of victims of genocide.

Furthermore, I gave you two examples (Guatemala and Croatia) of instances of 20th century genocide where the victims had arms, soliders, militias, and were still on the receiving end of a genocide campaign.

[Dardedar]

Crime rates have gone through the roof in England and Australia since they strengthened their victim disarmament laws, last I looked.

DAR
That's misleading gun nut rubbish. Snopes has a good debunk here.

Wiki has this:

***
Firearms and crime in Australia

Historically Australia has had relatively low levels of violent crime. Overall levels of homicide and suicide have remained relatively static for several decades, while the proportion of these crimes that involved firearms has consistently declined since the early 1980s. For example, between 1991 and 2001, the number of firearm related deaths in Australia has declined 47% [3]. The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia argued that there is no evidence that major advances in gun control in 1987, 1996 and 2002 had any impact on this already established trend.[4][5] A similar interpretation of the statistics has been made by the head of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Don Weatherburn,[6] who also notes that the level of legal gun ownership in New South Wales has increased in recent years. In 2006, the lack of any measurable effect from the 1996 firearms leglislation was confirmed using a statistical method (ARIMA), in a peer-reviewed article in the British Journal of Criminology by firearms advocates Dr Jeanine Baker (SSAA) and Samara McPhedran (Women in Shooting and Hunting)[7]."
***

The NRA has consistently lied and spun the facts regarding Australia's gun control. Please don't try to pass that junk around here.

D.
--------------------
"And in 1998, the rate at which firearms were used in murder, attempted murder, assault, sexual assault and armed robbery went down [Austrailia]. In that year, the last for which statistics are available, the number of murders involving a firearm declined to its lowest point in four years.

Of course, the Australians have always had tougher gun laws than the U.S. - despite that country's own frontier history and its cultural similarities to the United States. But in 1998, 54 Australians lost their lives to gun homicides, while in the States the number exceeded 13,000. The gun homicide rate in the U.S. is about 15 times that of Australia...and this is the nation the NRA wants us to condemn!"

[Hogeye]

I think you need to brush up on your statistics class notes.

If you can point out an error, then please do so.

There is a difference between a country having disarmament laws and a country having an actually disarmed set of victims of genocide.

I agree. That is precisely why your objections (Croatia and Guatemala) don't work. We are talking about victim disarmament laws (aka gun control laws), and you have switched to whether the victims had any arms. As if such laws are 100% effective! You would have to convince me that Yugoslavia and Guatemala had no gun control laws for your point to have any relevance. Frankly, I'm not that concerned if you somehow find a counter-example. All but one would also yield a strong correlation - but not a perfect "1."

Another important point we have "abstracted away" so far is the intensity of the victim disarmament laws - how harsh they are. E.g. Total prohibition is harsher than licensing is harsher than no-carry in govt buildings but okay elsewhere. I would conjecture the harsher the laws, the greater the probability of genocide. Turkey totally prohibited Armenians from possessing guns; Nazi Germany totally prohibited Jews and Gypsies, etc.


Darrel, JPFO is correct that crime stats are iffy. Yes, the AIC (Australian Institute of Criminology) show declines in crime reported to the police, but independent surveys show an increase in crime, especially violent crime. That doesn't necessarily mean that the govt-funded AIC is biased or fudging the stats (though it probably is); it may simply mean that many crimes are not reported to police (as AIC freely admits in its publications) but are acknowledged in surveys. Here's a piece about a study by International Crime Victims Survey: Britain, Australia top U.S. in violent crime: Rates Down Under increase despite strict gun-control measures. One comment about the Snopes article and other gun-grabber pieces - they seem to misunderstand the concept relating guns and crime. In particular, they keep wanting to focus on crimes in which firearms were used, when the real point is the economic effect of disarmed victims. They need to look at overall crime rates, whether guns are involved or not. Bottom line: I agree with JPFO that playing dueling crime stats makes little sense, since private crime is an insignificant consideration compared to genocide. I need to remember to reject the crime/accident "bait" next time, with a simple, "So what? It's insignificant."

[Doug]

I think you need to brush up on your statistics class notes.

If you can point out an error, then please do so.

DOUG
Let's see what you seem to be suggesting:

"Here's an inference I will make: There is a strong correlation between gun control laws and genocide."

And your reason?

"Every country [that had genocide], as far as we can determine [also had gun control laws]. 100%, in the 20th century."

DOUG
Even IF all countries that had genocide had gun control laws, this would not show a correlation, let alone a strong correlation, between gun control laws and genocide or the liklihood of genocide. For precisely the reasons Darrel has indicated.

Suppose there are 1000 smokers. Suppose that 800 of those also drink alcohol. Suppose also that 50 of the smokers get lung cancer, and every one of those that get lung cancer also drank alcohol. It would not follow that alcohol causes lung cancer. Note that MOST of the smokers that drank alcohol did NOT get lung cancer. This should be a clue.

Similarly, MOST countries have gun control laws. FEW have genocide. So you should probably look to other variables to see what causes genocide--especially since I have cited two instances, the Croatians and the Guatemalans--in which there was genocide and the victims were NOT disarmed.

[Dardedar]

One comment about the Snopes article... - they seem to misunderstand the concept relating guns and crime. In particular, they keep wanting to focus on crimes in which firearms were used, when the real point is the economic effect of disarmed victims.

DAR
The snopes article was responding directly to false claims that gun crimes went up after the stricter laws. They also directly deal with your false claim. I am not going to walk you through it.

They need to look at overall crime rates, whether guns are involved or not.

DAR
They did.

Bottom line: I agree with JPFO that playing dueling crime stats makes little sense,...

DAR
If they say that it is because they lose the duel.

since private crime is an insignificant consideration compared to genocide.

DAR
If 95% of countries (certainly a vast majority) have gun control (and zero genocide) then your "strong corellation" claim is unpersuasive. It is hardly surprising that the countries that have had genocide would fall into this broad majority category of having gun control. This neuters any weight of your claim. And even if there were any truth to your claim, comparing gun control results in third world despot, near anarchy conditions, to the needs of thriving democracies in Europe and Canada, would be ridiculous.

I need to remember to reject the crime/accident "bait" next time,...

DAR
You provided the bait with the bogus and very common myth about Australian and the "crimes have gone through the roof" claim. The material provided above refutes it. Why are you so determined to pass along false material and opposed to being corrected? I also refuted this junk the last time you passed it along in an extensive June 12 posthere, so it would be really helpful if you would remember THAT next time.

D.
------------------------
"A few months ago the the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that
the total number of gun deaths in Australia for year 2003, was 290.
This figure shows that there has been a great reduction in yearly gun
deaths since governments started to introduce stricter gun laws a
decade and a half ago....

The total gun death figure of 290 compares most favourably with the
figures of the 1970's and 1980's when 700 was a typical approx. figure.
Thus we are witnessing the fact that because of the steady increase in
gun controls over 400 fewer Australian die from gun wounds each year
compared with two decades ago." --link

[Hogeye]

Suppose there are 1000 smokers. Suppose that 800 of those also drink alcohol. Suppose also that 50 of the smokers get lung cancer, and every one of those that get lung cancer also drank alcohol. It would not follow that alcohol causes lung cancer.

Right, but we're talking about correlation, not causation. If only the alcohol drinkers got cancer as in your example, we would suspect that alcohol drinking is a necessary condition for getting cancer, since if smoking alone caused cancer we'd expect some non-drinkers to get it. That is a very good analogy to the gun control argument. Gun control seems to be a necessary condition for genocide.

But I will concede that "strong" should be omitted from my claim. Revised claim: Gun control is correlated with genocide. I could make a similar but more obvious claim: Genocide coincides with gun control laws. (I got this handy formulation from a global warming alarmist site which said "Recent warming coincides with rapid growth of human-made greenhouse gases.")

Similarly, MOST countries have gun control laws. FEW have genocide. So you should probably look to other variables to see what causes genocide...

Right. We've covered this already. I'm claiming an (almost) necessary condition, not a sufficient condition. Genocide also takes hatred and a State. The formula in "Death by Gun Control" is apt: Hatred + Government + Disarmed Civilians = Genocide

Darrel seems to have a it can't happen here attitude, that genocide can't happen in a first world country. But (elaborating on my earlier example) we have a State that "disappeared" what, 1000 or so Muslims, kept them in prison without lawyers or charges for months and some cases years, with flaghumpers and warmongers raving about terrists and Islamo-fascists. I see a possibility of internment and/or genocide. Don't you?

...especially since I have cited two instances, the Croatians and the Guatemalans--in which there was genocide and the victims were NOT disarmed.

You're accidently switching subjects again. My claim isn't about successfully totally disarming people, it's about the existence of gun control laws, aka victim disarmament laws. (Not to mention that I provided a citation showing why some Croats had weapons - they were former Yugoslav soldiers who were not subject to their Yugoslavian gun control laws. Tito was a Croat, y'know. Other ethnicities were not so lucky.)


Gun control laws are to genocide what smoking is to lung cancer.

One can't say smoking causes lung cancer, since the vast majority of smokers don't get lung cancer.
One can't say smoking is a necessary condition for lung cancer, because some people get lung cancer without smoking.
One wants to say something like smoking is an almost necessary condition for lung cancer, but "almost necessary" doesn't really make sense.
We realize that there are other factors, like genetic susceptibility, which are also contributing factors.

One could say that smoking is correlated with lung cancer, but this isn't strong enough.
One could say that smoking is strongly correlated with lung cancer, but this is wrong, as Doug pointed out.

My favorite formulations are:
Smoking facilitates lung cancer.
Smoking contributes to lung cancer.
Smoking is a contributing factor to lung cancer.

The first was my original formulation. I probably should have stuck with it, despite Darrel's rather silly objection. The second and third seem even better. Can anyone think of another formulation of the relationship between smoking and lung cancer?

[WindFem3]

Can anyone think of another formulation of the relationship between smoking and lung cancer?

I'm not the intellectual that Doug and Darrel are, or the pseudo-intellectual that you are, Hogeye. However, as far as smoking and lung cancer goes it is my opinion that as scientific research advances, researchers may find that a particular gene (or a set of particular genes) flowing through families may make individuals within that family more prone to lung/esophogeal/mouth etc., cancers or respiratory illnesses if they smoke or chew tobacco.

In my own family, if one smokes - one will most surely die of something that seems to be related to that addiction. I know, I know: it's not proof of anything, but it is enough for me never to have put a cigarette in my mouth in my entire life.

The fact, of course, is that smokers are suckers. The tobacco companies pretty much have them by the short hairs. I've met only a handful of smokers who didn't want to quit. The overwhelming number want to quit, but just can't. They're imprisoned by something that costs an arm and a leg and for which they get nothing of actual value. Their habit will also most likely either kill or disable them, and it also costs them their self-respect in that they're doing something they know they should not.

My family - all heavy smokers:
> maternal grandfather dead at 60 of lung cancer
> maternal grandmother dead of emphysema at 74
> mother dead of something else at 37, but already with a "smoker's hack" in her early 30s.
> my eldest sister just died two weeks ago of lung cancer at the ripe old age of 49. She began smoking at the age of 12.

Casual ("social smoker", very light usage) smokers:
> one elder sister (44)

Non-smokers:
> myself (42)
> youngest sister (36)

My "social smoker" sister, myself, and our youngest sister have no disease processes going on that we know of. We're all quite healthy. I'll die of something - and it may be just as hideous at the slow-suffocation death by emphysema or the gradual debilitation of lung cancer - who knows? But I'd like to think that I'm not going to die of something that was brought on by a lousy, dirty, grotesque, and addictive habit.

[Doug]

Similarly, MOST countries have gun control laws. FEW have genocide. So you should probably look to other variables to see what causes genocide...

Right. We've covered this already. I'm claiming an (almost) necessary condition, not a sufficient condition. Genocide also takes hatred and a State. The formula in "Death by Gun Control" is apt: Hatred + Government + Disarmed Civilians = Genocide

DOUG
Excellent. This makes my job a lot easier. If you are claiming that gun control/disarmament is a necessary condition for genocide to take place, then if I can show at least ONE case in which genocide took place in the absence of gun control/disarmament, then you are refuted.

I have given you two examples already. So you are refuted.

...especially since I have cited two instances, the Croatians and the Guatemalans--in which there was genocide and the victims were NOT disarmed.

You're accidently switching subjects again. My claim isn't about successfully totally disarming people, it's about the existence of gun control laws, aka victim disarmament laws.

DOUG
??. So now you are saying that gun control laws, whether they are enforced, are a necessary condition for genocide? How could laws that are not enforced be a necessary condition for something to take place, such as genocide? That is absurd.

(Not to mention that I provided a citation showing why some Croats had weapons - they were former Yugoslav soldiers who were not subject to their Yugoslavian gun control laws. Tito was a Croat, y'know. Other ethnicities were not so lucky.)

DOUG
It is well established that the Croatians were getting arms on the international weapons market.

Look, once you say that a law needn't be enforced in order for a correlation to exist, you have given up all hope of showing that the law has any correlation to the effect, since its nonenforcement is compatible as a causal factor to its not existing. So it makes NO sense to say that something that has no effect is a necessary condition for something else to take place. That is just absurd.

[Hogeye]

If you are claiming that gun control/disarmament is a necessary condition for genocide to take place, then if I can show at least ONE case in which genocide took place in the absence of gun control/disarmament, then you are refuted.

I guess you missed the "almost" part. And my acknowledgement that this is not a good formulation, since "almost necessary" doesn't make sense. And my statement that "all but one" (or all but a few) would still yield correlation, though of course not as strong. My latest formulation is this:

Gun control is a contributing factor to genocide.

This is analogous to "tobacco smoking is a contributing factor to lung cancer." Obviously, finding cases of lung cancer in non-smokers does not refute the claim. Nor does showing that some/many/the vast majority of smokers do not get lung cancer refute it.

I thank you for helping me work out a more precise formulation. This is better than the "correlation" formulation for several reasons: 1) "Is a contributing factor" gives a better implication of causation; "correlation" implies nothing about causation. 2) It avoids the necessity of relating it to formal statistics. 3) It encompasses the intensity dimension described earlier. I.e. The harsher the victim disarmament laws, the more likely genocide will occur, just as the more cigarettes you smoke, the more likely you are to get lung cancer. (ceteris paribus). It even encompasses the idea that if you repeal victim disarmament laws, the risk of genocide is reduced, just as if you quit smoking, the risk of lung cancer is reduced. I like this formulation!

As far as smoking and lung cancer goes it is my opinion that as scientific research advances, researchers may find that a particular gene (or a set of particular genes) flowing through families may make individuals within that family more prone to lung/esophogeal/mouth etc., cancers...

Yes, you're right. It's my impression that what you say is already the scientific consensus. As I wrote earlier, "We realize that there are other factors, like genetic susceptibility, which are also contributing factors." To stay on topic, there are factors like hatred and racism which also contribute to genocide - victim disarmament laws are not enough in themselves. IOW smoking and gun control are not sufficient conditions for lung cancer or genocide, respectively.

Hey, don't put yourself down; anyone that says something intelligent is an intellectual in my book. At least temporarily.

So now you are saying that gun control laws, whether they are enforced, are a necessary condition for genocide?

Now I am saying that gun control laws, to the extent that they are effective, are a contributing factor to genocide. Obviously, if such laws are unenforced and ignored, then they have little or no effect. The other extreme case is that the law is so draconian that everyone obeys, so it doesn't need actual enforcment. That's why we need to speak of "effectiveness."