re: #139 Political Atheist

You called out Sat’s “middle ground” view of regulations facile.

Yeah. It’s completely facile. There’s no ‘middle ground’. If, for example, you live in an area with a lot of actual danger and long police response times, gun ownership is far more reasonable than it is out in the middle of a prosperous suburb.

Demonstrably. it is not. California has a gun culture as strong as any, a very large number of gun owners, and strong regulation. The culture is the same the laws more strict. We enjoy a lower rate of gun violence than many states with lesser regulations.

This isn’t what a ‘demonstration’ looks like, though. First of all, the claim that California has a gun culture as strong as any other is an assertion, an unproved one you’ve done nothing to support. Second of all, I wouldn’t call regulation of guns in California ‘strong’—while acknowledging they’re some of the strictest in the nation— but more ‘erratic’, since a CCW permit from Dog County is valid anywhere in the state. Finally, you can’t discount other factors that play into gun violence, which a simplistic approach of talking solely about regulations does.

But moreover, Californian gun regulation is only ‘strict’ compared to other states in the US; it’s not strict when compared to other countries, or to an abstract ideal. This is the basic problem with any facile ‘middle ground’ argument; the middle is entirely contextual, and carries no inherent meaning.

The change in gun culture since I was a kid needs to be reversed. Responsible gun owners, enthusiasts, salesmen, etc. need to get into the habit of discouraging people from owning guns. Most people don’t need guns. There needs to be honest about this in gun culture, and that honest is sorely lacking.

I’m kind of interested, though: you seem to be implying that the ‘strict’ regulations of California are responsible for the lower gun violence in California. Is that your argument?