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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30422 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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Do we see those effects in societies which have almost no guns available? Are there stats on relative frequency of such crimes in e.g. Japan or Australia?

Japan has virtually no violence to speak of at any rate, so I don't know what you'd even expect to measure, there.

But suffice it to say, there is a reason The Yakuza can function so easily. They have the capacity for coordinated violence, and your average citizen has no means to resist them even if they wanted to.

Of course, in Mexico the Cartels also function pretty easily but engage in far, FAR more violence than the Yakuza do... despite guns also being nominally banned there.

So perhaps the problem is more that Mexican culture and Japanese Culture have different norms around the use of violence.

This gets to the REAL point at issue: the driving force of violence in any given nation is NOT the availability of weapons.

First of all, I'm not certain the armed populace are not themselves being tyrannical or supporting tyranny. History is littered with pro-tyranny rebellions against the government such as the US Civil War,

I'm going to resist my first instinct to accuse you of bad faith and just ask:

How is a nation actively choosing to separate itself from a government that it no longer wishes to participate in, and to thus secede from participation in said government "pro-tyranny?"

By this literal, exact logic the original American revolution was also 'pro-tyranny.'

Armed defenders of liberty against state tyranny is one possible dynamic, but armed forces of tyranny against the democratic state is a pretty common one too.

Seems like a good reason to allow pro-democracy forces to keep weapons? I dunno what examples you're thinking of in particular.

Second, I don't think it's true that there's a correlation between stricter gun laws and backsliding on democracy or basic civil rights, and I'd like you to support that claim.

North Korea, 2009:

"N. Korea enacts rules on regulating firearms"

North Korea has had a gun control law since 2009, recently obtained data showed Monday, in what was seen as an effort to tighten control over the society at a time of power succession.

Venezuela, 2012:

"Venezuela bans private gun ownership"

Afghanistan, 2021:

"Taliban in Afghan capital Kabul start collecting weapons from civilians"

Saudi Arabia, 2023 (timely!)

"Saudi Arabia announces new gun laws, restrictions on ownership"

Even if we don't assume that banning guns = slide into tyranny... the actual tyrants seem to think that banning guns is helpful to their ends.

Here's a fun exercise for you, can you point out any country that is heavily tyrannical and has very little democracy or protection of basic civil rights... and yet allows broad gun ownership?

Seems almost facially obvious to me that banning civilian-held guns is a DEFINING FEATURE of tyrannical nations, and that ONLY places with functional democracies (e.g. Switzerland) end up having permissive guns laws.

Saudi Arabia, 2023 (timely!)

"Saudi Arabia announces new gun laws, restrictions on ownership"

But... Saudi Arabia has been a tyranny for its entire existence. As far as I've understood, it's not likely to get more tyrannical by any standards we'd generally consider tyrannical. Nevertheless, they appear, by these laws, to have allowed (and still allow!) some form of handgun ownership.

Monarchy is not the same thing as tyranny, and if you're referring to their laws regarding social issues, consider that this is what most people living there might actually want.

Ages ago I heard a clip where a western reporter interviewed the Saudi king. He asked why doesn't he just make women equal to men under law, he's the king after all and can do whatever he wants. The response was seemingly a tangent about how much he loves his subjects, and how highly he values their opinion and values. The (Facebook, I think) commentariat couldn't make sense of it, and the reaction was an overwhelming "what the fuck is this dude on about?", while to me he was pretty clearly saying "If I pass a law like that, my people will string me up by my feet".

Now, how much does that have to do with gun control, I have no idea, but one shouldn't assume a government is a tyranny just because there's an absolute ruler.

Here's a fun exercise for you, can you point out any country that is heavily tyrannical and has very little democracy or protection of basic civil rights... and yet allows broad gun ownership?

Nazi Germany would be the most obvious answer - Weimar-era gun laws were repeatedly relaxed by the Nazi regime (with an initially de facto but later de jure exception for Jews) as part of their remilitarization of Germany and ownership of long guns by non-Jews was entirely deregulated in 1938. A lot of the friends and relations of the Gypsies, homosexuals, socialists etc. who the Nazis persecuted would have been armed. Didn't make any difference - the Nazi regime was a paradigmatic case where the answer to "You can have my gun when you prize it from my cold dead hands" would be "Very well, let's do it your way"

And of course, if a determined population actually sticks to their guns in this way, they at least improve the casualty ratio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising

But yeah, had they thrown down their weapons at the start, there'd probably have been less death overall.

Warsaw is notoriously not in Germany. The Polish nation-in-arms had already been defeated on the battlefield long before Hitler thought about the Holocaust - the fact that the Germans would win a violent conflict was already settled, as was the fact that they were willing to use the necessary force (including much bigger weapons than the rifles armed civilians rely on) and brutality to do so.

The claim that "civilian-owned guns are a useful tool of resistance to a foreign invader" is a very different one to "civilian-owned guns are protective against the domestic government turning tyrannical". The first claim seems like it should be answerable as a matter of military history - FWIW my uneducated view is that since about 1900 civilian guns have not been a problem for an invader able and willing to use tanks and aircraft against troublesome civilians, and that effective resistance to foreign invaders has tended to rely on "bombs" (IRA car bombs, VC claymore traps in Vietnam, IEDs in Iraq) rather than guns. I think the second claim is never going to be settled for the reasons we are seeing on this thread.

the driving force of violence in any given nation is NOT the availability of weapons.

So? It would be absurd to suggest never taking any action on one cause of an ill just because it happened not to be the most important cause. As long as it's a significant factor it's worth doing something about.

How is a nation actively choosing to separate itself from a government that it no longer wishes to participate in, and to thus secede from participation in said government "pro-tyranny?"

I don't think he was saying the action of secession was pro-tyranny, merely that rebellions can incidentally also be 'pro-tyranny', which is hard to dispute in the case of the U.S. Civil War, given what was being fought over.

As long as it's a significant factor it's worth doing something about.

If it's not the most significant factor, then almost by definition you shouldn't be prioritizing it.

My position is that there are at least a couple more significant factors that are studiously ignored when it comes to this issue.

merely that rebellions can incidentally also be 'pro-tyranny', which is hard to dispute in the case of the U.S. Civil War, given what was being fought over.

I don't think there was any stated intention for the Confederate States to extend their authority over any other nations, so hard to claim they were 'tyrannical' with regards to the North, nor that they were somehow flouting the actual laws of the country at the time.

And to the extent they were tyrannizing their own people, well you're hardly going to suggest that slaves enjoyed expansive gun rights, are you?

i.e., my point, that tyrannical powers generally prefer disarmed populaces.

If it's not the most significant factor, then almost by definition you shouldn't be prioritizing it.

My position is that there are at least a couple more significant factors that are studiously ignored when it comes to this issue.

This circles back to our comments above on tractability.

well you're hardly going to suggest that slaves enjoyed expansive gun rights, are you?

No but the point is that an armed population, if they are ever able to resist the state, will not always be doing so to benefit of the population. As another commentor has observed, the latter and post-Reconstruction era South would have been a much freer place were the entire population disarmed.

tyrannical powers generally prefer disarmed populaces

Maybe true, but I don't think it holds any lessons for modern day America.

If we are looking for a US example of pro-tyranny armed citizens rebelling against the government, then the first Klan and the Redeemers (my history is not good enough to know to what extent these were meaningfully different groups) are a more clear-cut example than the Confederacy.

But surely if it is the culture's perception of violence which has the greatest impact you should put more work into that? If we rework America into a more conservative culture like Japan we could solve the issue and keep gun owners happy, then everyone wins.

Well not really because gun control is, at least from a policy perspective, relatively tractable, and from a political perspective many good measures are well inside the Overton window. 'Reworking America into a more conservative culture' will never happen, at least not whole cloth and not in a way where the results will be easily predictable and definitely translate into a more stable society.

relatively tractable, and from a political perspective many good measures are well inside the Overton window. 'Reworking America into a more conservative culture' will never happen, at least not whole cloth and not in a way where the results will be easily predictable and definitely translate into a more stable society.

This is an interesting position to take given that we can literally look at Japan and see that they have something resembling a 'more conservative culture' and attendant low rates of violence.

So we are now facing a question: WHY can it never happen in the U.S.?

If it is in-principle possible, why is it dismissed out of hand?

Well if you think that side of things is tractable, what plausible policy responses do you think would meaningfully move us in that direction that actually have a chance of being implemented?

It sounds like there are a bunch of post-Soviet countries with permissive handgun laws. Plus a couple like Russia which want to keep that locked down.

Also most of South America.

It doesn't seem like a zero gun society there resulted in more assault on women or the elderly.

Not when you pick one that just doesn't have any violence to measure, no.

How the heck to you expect to establish a correlation with ANYTHING when there's scant data to use?

Mexico nominally bans guns but totally lacks the capacity to enforce that, and is quasi anarchic in many places.

Hence why Mexican Citizens should probably be allowed to own guns.

Do you have examples of a free country adopting these laws and that allowing the rise of tyranny?

I mean, I would consider both the United Kingdom and Canada as examples of this. Canada has never had high rates of violence, and yet they have gotten continually stricter on guns. The U.K. is unironically a clown show about it, coming after Kitchen Knives now. <30 years from when they banned handguns for civilians and they're now claiming can't be trusted with a fucking bread knife.

Canada in particular is very "iron fist in velvet glove" about it.

And then they do shit like shut off your bank account if you protest.

If unilaterally seizing the private property of peaceful citizens isn't tyrannical, I don't know what is.

The whole issue is that you're asking me to demonstrate a free society that gave up guns and THEN became tyrannical, when my whole premise is that:

A) Societies which allow civilian gun ownership are less likely to ever become tyrannical (again, see Switzerland)

B) It requires a tyrannical state to actually enact and enforce gun laws in the first place.

So my examples are things like the Taliban seizing power again and immediately confiscating weapons or Venezuela banning guns then kidnapping citizens en masse and further clamping down on dissent.

Tyrants don't trust their citizens with weapons. So they inevitably end up confiscating weapons from civilians.

That's what happens in tyrannies. The get more, not less tyrannical over time. So the solution is to maintain all safeguards that prevent falling into it in the first place.

And civilian firearm ownership seems to be a reliable one.

The U.K. is unironically a clown show about it, coming after Kitchen Knives now. <30 years from when they banned handguns for civilians and they're now claiming can't be trusted with a fucking bread knife.

Despite what you have been reading there is no systematic ban on ordinary domestic knives in the UK. There is a ban on swords and machetes -- as there is in many countries -- and you can be have a knife confiscated if you are carrying it outside your home under suspicious circumstances -- as you can in many countries and most US states.

Canada in particular is very "iron fist in velvet glove" about it.

And then they do shit like shut off your bank account if you protest.

You're theory being that if the truckers were armed the Canadian government would have been... less harsh? If anything that would surely make them come down like a ton of bricks.

You're theory being that if the truckers were armed the Canadian government would have been... less harsh? If anything that would surely make them come down like a ton of bricks.

They would have had to commit to actually exercising force and seeing blood in the streets rather than pussyfooting around and closing bank accounts.

My theory is that the Canadian government would be less likely to implement tyrannical policies if they had to worry about an armed populace, generally.

Why should we expect them to treat the next protest any more nicely?

After all, the whole reason the truckers protested in the first place was the imposition of vaccination requirements,

And of course, they continue adding more firearms restrictions apace, despite not having suffered any actual attacks.

It's almost like they just want to ban the guns irrespective of any direct statistical justification.

And I don't know WTF to make of their current approach to Euthanasia policy

It's almost like they just want to ban the guns irrespective of any direct statistical justification

Absurd strawman. Whether you find it convincing or not there is plenty of literature on the benefits of various gun control policies, and more generally on the benefits of low firearm ownership rates. Not saying you have to agree with its conclusions, but don't pretend there isn't any such literature.

I'm sure there's also plenty of literature on the benefits of anything somebody wants to do, especially if somebody is a government with billion-sized budgets and control over financing of the people who produce the literature. You only need a keyboard and a screen to produce the literature, and the quality of most "research" in these areas is abysmal anyway and nobody is going to catch you. The effort to disprove bad literature vastly exceeds the effort to produce it, so "literature" can prove pretty much anything that is not trivial to disprove. Most of these are hopelessly confounded, and rarely useful if you want to understand the matter and not just use it to bludgeon an ideological opponent. I don't see much value in it - yes, somebody wrote something. Somebody else wrote something opposite. So what?

If you think it's not worth engaging with for those reasons then fine, whatever, but it still annoys me when people pretend like it doesn't exist and make grand declarative statements like 'it's almost like they just want to ban the guns irrespective of any direct statistical justification'.

And while some of things you say may be true, engaging with it is still surely the only way to at least try to make policy effectively.

make grand declarative statements like 'it's almost like they just want to ban the guns irrespective of any direct statistical justification'.

Would something like "it's almost like they just want to ban the guns, so they commission somebody with impressive list of letters after their name to write a bunch of articles that says banning guns is good, and then use that as a justification as if it were the objective truth" sound better to you? It doesn't to me.

the only way to at least try to make policy effectively.

If the policy is "ban the guns", then I don't see why I would want for it to be made effectively. I would want it to be, on the contrary, as ineffective as humanly possible, and maybe even a little more.

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