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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Yeah, Sig is pretty cool.
They even include a copy of the BATF compliance letter with the brace!
But I wouldn't say a 938 is soft. It has more snap than any other 9mm I own, but since I shoot .45 all the time it is NBD.
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jonnyrig
climber
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So would issuance of a medi-jane card be cause for the great state of Cali to come knocking on your door to confiscate your weaponry?
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jonnyrig
climber
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Interesting. I have doubt that the whole standoff issue is done yet; but that's another thread topic. The government has a long memory.
In any case, I don't do mj and don't have a card. No worries here. Except Werner's onto something... we keep giving up rights for stupid reasons, mainly fear.
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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Madbolter wrote;
"A 1993 nationwide survey of 4,977 households found that over the previous five years, at least 3.5% of households had members who had used a gun 'for self-protection or for the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere.' Applied to the U.S. population, this amounts to 1,029,615 such incidents per year. This figure excludes all 'military service, police work, or work as a security guard.'"
This statistic is not accurate, read here;
In 1992, Gary Kleck and Marc Getz, criminologists at Florida State University, conducted a random digit-dial survey to establish the annual number of defensive gun uses in the United States. They surveyed 5,000 individuals, asking them if they had used a firearm in self-defense in the past year and, if so, for what reason and to what effect. Sixty-six incidences of defensive gun use were reported from the sample. The researchers then extrapolated their findings to the entire U.S. population, resulting in an estimate of between 1 million and 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year. http://www.armedwithreason.com/debunking-the-defensive-gun-use-myth/
Turns out, not only is the number that so many arguments have used as a cornerstone wrong, many of the defensive uses were illegal.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Ahh... there is SO much wrong with that article that it would take a book-length manuscript to address it. Here is BARELY scratching the surface.
The article starts with a few anecdotal cases designed to "soften up" the opponent, much like a boxer jabs and jabs, knowing that the jabs won't provide the knockout, but setting the opponent up for the knockout. Anecdotal cases are always cherry picked, and how they are reported makes ALL the difference (I say this reviewing both pro-gun and anti-gun reporting).
But the article goes far beyond just citing the typical slate of BIG MISTAKES among gun owners (as the likes of Gary does in this thread). The article draws a substantive conclusion from these cases: "What do these and so many other cases have in common? They are the byproduct of a tragic myth: that millions of gun owners successfully use their firearms to defend themselves and their families from criminals."
But wait!
A "byproduct" of the "tragic myth?"
THIS claim the article never, ever supports. Yet THIS is one of the BIG claims the article is really driving to get you to believe: "The fact that people BELIEVE that gun ownership and usage as self-defense PRODUCES these sorts of BIG MISTAKES." And the corollary is, of course: "If people could be convinced to stop BELIEVING the 'tragic myth,' then these PRODUCTS of the myth would cease or be greatly reduced."
As a side argument, the article states (although does nothing to sustain) the claim that the criminal possession of guns would be greatly reduced if the ownership of guns by citizens could be greatly reduced, because about 200,000 guns are stolen each year.
Let's address the side argument first, because showing it for what it is reveals much about the overall tactics of the entire article.
There are conservatively around 300,000,000 (three hundred million) civilian-owned guns in the US. Let's accept that 200,000 of them are stolen each year. That means that less than .07% of the population's guns are stolen each year. First, try to get your mind around how insignificantly tiny that percentage is.
Next, let's consider how entirely irrelevant that percentage really is. In an article written with ATF-supplied studies and statistics (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/guns.html), we read conclusions like these:
"Ask a cop on the beat how criminals get guns and you're likely to hear this hard boiled response: 'They steal them.' But this street wisdom is wrong, according to one frustrated Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agent who is tired of battling this popular misconception."
"In fact, there are a number of sources that allow guns to fall into the wrong hands, with gun thefts at the bottom of the list. Wachtel [ATF agent] says one of the most common ways criminals get guns is through straw purchase sales."
"The next biggest source of illegal gun transactions where criminals get guns are sales made by legally licensed but corrupt at-home and commercial gun dealers."
Etc., etc. The tiny, TINY proportion of guns stolen each year is not a significant issue in the criminal possession of guns. And reducing the number of guns legally possessed would only very, very minimally reduce the number of guns criminals obtained... because the proportion of guns stolen to guns legally possessed is so infinitesimally tiny.
So, to sum up this one point: The article makes it SOUND like by reducing the number of guns legally owned, we could put a substantial dent in the number of guns possessed by criminals AND significantly reduce the BIG MISTAKES in defensive uses of guns. NEITHER idea is substantiated by the facts or by the article itself. BOTH claims are "sustained" by hand-waving in the general direction of the facts but without any review of the vast array of facts that counter the claims. This is cherry-picking of "evidence," and the article is full of this tactic.
The irony is that you claim that the main study I cited was filled with cherry-picking.
However, let's get right at that study, since much of the article you pointed me to addresses it.
As just one major point your article makes, the article claims that over half of the study's self-defense uses were actually illegal, despite the respondents' natural efforts to paint their uses in a positive light. This proportion is supported by appeal to a Harvard study involving a five-judge panel, which was asked to review respondents' answers and evaluate each situation as described for its legality.
Okay, so let's review the actual Harvard study upon which these "results" are based (http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/6/4/263.full).
Suddenly, the "results" get very interesting indeed. Follow the study's methods through, and you quickly see that the five-judge panel actually reviewed 35 total "self defense" cases, and that out of an initial sample size (the original two studies from which the cases were drawn) of 4426 total respondents!
The Harvard study "winnows out" and "cherry picks" down until the IT (PRE-judicial review) finds 35 cases to have the judicial panel review. Then, on the basis of that TINY proportion of putative "self-defense" cases, the article you cite IGNORES this finding in its conclusions from the study: "The criminal court judges were shown summaries of the remaining 35 events; each judge rated each event. Twenty per cent of the time a judge rated a case as 'as likely legal as illegal.'"
YOUR article instead chooses this statement as the basis of its conclusions: "Excluding these ratings [the 20% rating from the previous quote] (when judges often said there was not enough information), a majority of the judges rated 18 of the 35 (51%) as probably illegal and 15 of the 35 (43%) as probably legal." But this sentence is only a SUBSET of the actual findings, as it deals with only a SUBSET of the breakdown of case types.
So, in reality, of the 35 cases the judges actually considered, 20% of them did not result in a finding of illegality, with some judges claiming that they were "as likely as unlikely to be illegal." And of the REMAINING 28 cases, the judges by a bare majority found the cases "likely illegal."
Those actual findings are nowhere NEAR as compelling as your article would have us believe!
Sum this all up, and what you REALLY have from the Harvard study is the vast, vast, VAST... VASSSST majority of the purported cases never being considered by the judicial panel (and who knows what biases the judges on that panel had?). Of the TINY proportion that were considered, what YOU DO NOT HAVE is "51% of the cases being found illegal!" THAT is what you CANNOT fairly conclude from the Harvard study.
But that is exactly what YOUR article does conclude!
I really could go on and on and on. Your article is absolutely RIFE with misinformation, cherry-picked data, and FLAGRANT misinterpretation of study methods and results as to be flat-out laughable.
However, the most significant point I take from your article is how it "says" again and again without every having the honesty to flat-out SAY it: If you reduce the number of guns, you WILL reduce the amount of gun violence. According to the article, the number of BIG MISTAKES will significantly decline (despite the FACT that the BIG MISTAKES are the tiniest proportion of legal gun uses), and, most importantly, reducing the number of guns will significantly reduce the number of guns held by criminals.
BOTH sides of that "claim" (that is never flatly made) are incorrect, and there are countless articles based upon FBI, ATF, and US Department of Justice statistics demonstrating the fact of the incorrectness of the claim. Here is just one: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/14/disarming-realities-as-gun-sales-soar-gun-crimes-plummet/
The FACT is that there are more guns in civilian hands than ever before. More guns are being CARRIED by civilians than ever before. More concealed-carry permits are being issued than ever before. And by all metrics, violent crimes INCLUDING crimes involving guns are in dramatic decline over the past decade. (Except for places like Chicago, which has the strictest gun-control laws in the nation, and where all violent and gun-related incidents are on the rise year by year. And note that a FEW places like Chicago actually skew the nationwide statistics.)
So, put aside ALL of the nonsense and flagrant misinterpretations by the article you cited, and you are still left with the FACTS that dispute the main points the article was trying to make. It is simply not the case that more guns lead to more crime, more violent crime, or more crime involving guns. And it is not the case that there would be substantially fewer BIG MISTAKES if there were fewer guns in civilian hands. What your article fails to recognize is that the relevant proportions are so tiny that huge decreases in gun ownership (not gonna happen!) would have only minimal "results."
(I could write a whole other treatise regarding how your article misrepresents the Kleck/Getz study, but I've said enough.)
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Madbolter, try apply those same critical assessment skills to the BS pro-gun articles you posted here a while ago. Produce the best article you can find supporting the position that more gun ownership means less death and injury by guns.
TE
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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"Produce the best article you can find supporting the position that more gun ownership means less death and injury by guns."
EVERY law enforcement agency in America endorses firearms for personal defense.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Sorry, TE, I won't play your game. The point you should be taking from this whole mess is that ALL statistics are BS (as Mark Twain rightly noted). ALL of them mean nothing apart from interpretation, and ALL of the interpretations written up by both pro-gun AND anti-gun articles depend upon interpretations that conflate (thin) correlations with causes.
Gun ownership in this country is NOT about statistics. If you could prove (which you can't) that doubling gun ownership doubled gun homicides, you would still have merely correlation, and, more importantly, you would not address the fact that gun ownership (and carrying) is a constitutionally-protected right in this country.
People like you seem bound and determined to undo the 2nd amendment (good luck with that), but the public largely isn't buying the correlations-as-causes arguments.
And even if you somehow managed to get the 2nd amendment changed (or so radically and "progressively" interpreted by the courts) that the average citizen really had no more legal right to keep and BEAR arms, all you would accomplish is to turn more than half of this nation into "criminals." The average person KNOWS that they have the right of self-defense, which just is the right to the MEANS necessary to defend him/herself against likely threats. You are not going to convince the average, otherwise law-abiding citizen, that they no longer have the right of self-defense nor the right to the MEANS by which to uphold it.
Remember prohibition.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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I'm jonesing for the Sig 320. What the heck is that "tabbed trigger safety" thingy?
It looks like it violates all tenets of the KISS philosophy.
Never mind, I see that it isn't legal in Cali. WTF? It's got every safety
gizmo known to man!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Religious philosophy, I take it?
LOL... Twain was an avowed atheist.
"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Yeah, Twain was a complete ignoramus.
Or perhaps you are missing the point, which is that the statistics themselves are not the problem (the data is what it is). The devil is in interpreting the data, and there people (scientists and statisticians included) necessarily bring their biases to bear.
Show me an article you like, based upon "favorable" statistics, and I'll rip it to shreds. You (and TE) can do the same to anything I trot out. It's a GAME, and it is pretty close to utterly irrelevant to the principles underlying this issue.
Legislate me into being a "criminal," and, sure enough, I'll be a "criminal." Remember prohibition.
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WBraun
climber
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Legislate me into being a "criminal," and, sure enough, I'll be a "criminal."
That's the root of it.
All else is the distraction and illusion ....
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WBraun
climber
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No law needed for you.
You're already a criminal.
That's why you were born in the material world ......
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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You said ALL statistics. ALL.
Or perhaps you are missing the point?
Dingleberry, the day I posted against your vaunted hero, Jim Beyer, you have had nothing but antipathy for me. You stated then that this was the turning point for you in your thinking about me. And since then, there is no thread we both participate on in which you don't make that antipathy clear. It doesn't matter what I say or how I say it, you'll come up with a way to dig at it.
My point in this case is crystal clear, and your intentional refusal to grant it just further makes the point of the above paragraph. I find it frustrating to honestly attempt to engage the ISSUES with somebody who so obviously only finds pleasure in forum drive-by shootings aimed more or less in the direction (your aim is pretty bad) of somebody he doesn't like.
It's been years of this, and finally you have convinced me that the feeling of antipathy should be mutual. Unlike you, however, I'll now respond by just ignoring your further "contributions" as the irrelevancies that they are.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Nope, not confused. I can look it up, if it was worth the time, which it's not. I called Intifada for what it was, and you hopped on and started bagging on me about how disingenuous of me it was to discredit a climb by such a great climber, particularly when I had experienced being discredited myself. I responded that I was discredited on the basis of lies by people who had not climbed the route, while I had climbed and documented Intifada. And your response was that you had previously felt like I had gotten a raw deal in the climbing community, but that after my "attacks" on Jim Beyer, your opinion of me had completely changed.
Like your inability to differentiate among principles in discussions like this very thread, your inability to differentiate between legitimate route criticism and flat-out defamation is the real root of the problem in your long-term dislike of me, at least as you stated it.
Regardless of the reasons you NOW feel that you have, I'm done trying to engage with you in honest fashion, because you are not intellectually honest.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Back on topic, the recent dialectic on this thread is:
Gary relentlessly posts every new tidbit of gun idiocy he can find in the news.
I respond with a well-known study and call for a more balanced perspective, noting that the idiots are in the tiny, tiny minority of gun owners.
Brandon responds that the statistics in the well-known study are wrong (no duh), but posts an article that is itself witheringly biased and that flagrantly misrepresents the statistics and studies it trots out to rip the well-known study.
I point out that statistics (clearly meaning the INTERPRETATION) of them is always "incorrect" (per Brandon), as interpretations are always bias-laden, even among "careful" practitioners. Put interpretation in a loaded/heated context like gun-control, and Twain's comment is spot on!
I summarize that the principles at issue in this discussion are not touched by, nor will their defenders fall to, heavily-interpreted statistics. And I urge wannabe legislators to remember prohibition, where an otherwise law-abiding class of people were suddenly MADE into criminals, and that for violating NO rights of others.
To expound upon prohibition, this overnight class of "criminals" were criminalized using the exact same tactics now employed by gun-control wannabes: Trot out statistics regarding the EFFECTS of the substance it was proposed to make illegal, thereby failing to properly penalize the ABUSERS of the substance and instead going after the mere POSSESSORS (and makers) of the substance. Overnight, people who were doing nothing wrong were suddenly criminals. And overnight the stage was set for gangland America as we now know it. And the legislators, never learning anything from history, make the same mistakes regarding drugs. And the wannabes, learning nothing from history, now want to make the same mistakes regarding guns.
Remember prohibition, and give up on these endless and fruitless "wars on ___" that only create "criminals" and black markets.
I've said before, and I'll repeat: You want reasonable legislation designed to better keep guns out of the hands of already-convicted, VIOLENT felons, and you'll have no fight from me (although I continue to believe that this is a state's rights issue that the feds have no actual constitutional right to engage in). Even on the subject of letting the feds handle things like background checks (that are not stored indefinitely, but that are point-in-time "yay or nay" decisions), you'll get no fight from me.
But pointing out that sometimes idiots do idiotic things with their guns is going nowhere. Idiots do idiotic things with all sorts of things, and that has zero bearing on gun rights, anymore than idiots driving idiotically and killing people with their cars has any bearing on the right to transportation.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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You're a eyes-like-burning-coals fanatic
Pot calling kettle....
From http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/2574956/Super-Score-80-million-hacked-zero-unhacked
We need a personal information bill of rights. It should be a civil rights violation to allow 80-million identities to be stolen. The C-level executives should do jail time.
LOL
Want me to continue?
When you are called on it in the next post, you respond:
Great point and thanks for blunting my hyperbole.
But then you just can't help yourself....
Hit the investors right in the face with a HUGE fine. Make it in the millions, insure (haha) Antham makes no profit in 2015. PUNISH THEM SEVERELY.
ALL CAPS???
Pot calling kettle....
Edit: More? How about we "take this outside" and devote a worthless thread to just you and I duking it out like schoolboys?
Or, perhaps you could have a touch of charity in your interpretations. Just a thought....
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jonnyrig
climber
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Would you support universal background checks? They are proven to stop a percentage of prohibited persons from buying firearms legally. Even Ron admits that.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Would you support universal background checks?
Yes.
I'm leery of the feds doing it, but (sigh) there is really no alternative. But the only way I'm supporting it is if it's literally point-in-time and then discarded. As in Colorado, there can be no stored records of background checks by the authorities. The checks are done, the results go to the seller, and the sale is accordingly consummated or not.
With the feds record of information management, I do worry about such a system turning into a full-blown federal gun registry. And the idea that they are going to abide by the law, even if the law precluded them from keeping such records regarding the background checks (think NSA), at least they would indeed be violating the LAW (hmmm... much like the criminals they are keeping guns out of the hands of).
Anyway, I digress, yes, in principle I'm behind universal background checks.
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