Facebook Expands Online Commerce Role, But Says "No Guns, Please" 191
The New York Times reports that Facebook's newly staked-out role as a site to facilitate local, person-to-person sales (ala Craigslist) has a new wrinkle: the site has announced a site-wide policy restricting firearms sales that applies to personal sales, though not to licensed dealers or gun clubs. According to the story,
Although Facebook was not directly involved in gun sales, it has served as a forum for gun sales to be negotiated, without people having to undergo background checks. The social network, with 1.6 billion monthly visitors, had become one of the worldâ(TM)s largest marketplaces for guns and was increasingly evolving into an e-commerce site where it could facilitate transactions of goods. ... Facebook said it would rely on its vast network of users to report any violations of the new rules, and would remove any post that violated the policy. Beyond that, the company said it could ban users or severely limit the ways they post on Facebook, depending on the type and severity of past violations. If the company believed someoneâ(TM)s life was in danger, Facebook would work with law enforcement on the situation.
The policy applies as well to private sales that occur using Facebook Messenger, though the company does not scan Messenger exchanges and must rely on user reports.
So good it's trademarked (Score:3)
The social network, with 1.6 billion monthly visitors, had become one of the worldâ(TM)s largest marketplaces for guns
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And if that were in a any way true, why was the BATFE not rounding up criminals by the millions? Oh yeah, because criminals weren't buying guns online through Facebook.
Astro-turfing (Score:1, Informative)
What's going on with the comments here? It's like the Brady Campaign sent out an action alert and all their drones showed up to post.
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I suspect it's a single troll posting lots of crap as an AC. It's similar to this exchange: http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8657315&cid=51359929 [slashdot.org]. It's best that you ignore it because the troll isn't here to discuss in good faith.
Typical BS (Score:1, Insightful)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_by_state
A list, state by state, showing the laws as far as guns go. Permit to purchase, registration, carry permits, and more--including background checks requirements for private sales. Most of the states on that list require absolutely no background check, license, transfer of ownership, paperwork, etc as far as face to face sales go. This is a state matter and 100% legal. What facebook is doing--that is, blackballing discussion of it across the
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I'm about as pro-gun as they come, but I can't agree with this statement. Facebook is a private company, and as such they're entitled to restrict speech on their site in any way they please. Morality doesn't enter into it at all.
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They're not even restricting speech; they're restricting commerce.
You still have the freedom to discuss these gun sales restrictions and to try and get Facebook to change it's stance.
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Don't worry that'll change. Especially after Merkel went to FB and said to censor anything to do with migrants.
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I agree with you up to the point that, we as a society, have decided that the government WILL NOT allow businesses to pick and choose with whom they do business.
A private restaurant serving a black person being an old example and a professional artist refusing to create a piece of art for a gay wedding being a recent example. Wholesalers picking and choosing which retailers to service for reasons other than ability to pay would be another example. Why then should the government not step in and charge Facebo
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What facebook is doing--that is, blackballing discussion of it across the board--is morally wrong,
Lucky for us they are completely not doing that.
You're allowed to discuss the sale of guns on Facebook all you want, you're just not allowed to do the actual selling of guns.
Have you ever listend to politicians? They're constantly saying and discussing things that are against the law; it's their job. If they were only allowed to stay within the law, you wouldn't need politicians. But they're damn well not allowed to do any of it until they can get the law changed.
That is what free speech is about; the freed
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The way I read the policy is that people are not allowed to advertise the selling of guns except for licensed dealers who are then not allowed to accept payment via Facebook.
I guess you are correct in that so far Facebook seems to be willing to allow people to post something like "Yeah, Moe's Hardware has a pretty decent assortment of guns and their prices are fair."
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And where do you stand in regards to Aaron and Melissa Klein? Should they be forced into bankruptcy for exercising their freedom to not produce pieces of art contrary to their beliefs or should the gay men have exercised their freedom and gone elsewhere?
I can agree that Facebook is within its rights but only if governments agree that the Kleins were within their rights. Once government starts picking and choosing to support a right for only a portion of the population, are we not simply back to the pre-Civi
facebook no more (Score:2)
Ah yes (Score:4, Insightful)
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I live in the middle of the ghetto and I have no guns
why do you need a gun?
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"how much does that gun protect your house when you're not in it?" What an asinine question? The only possible reason to even ask that question is if you are the type that believes guns are the inherent evil and do the killing all by themselves.
Maybe, if you live in such a high crime area and want to own a gun and cannot keep the gun on you or closer to you when you leave the house, then you buy a safe and bolt it to the wall or the floor or not at all because most criminals are smart enough to realize that
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Another billionaire... doesn't understand why anyone would want a gun.
He and his ilk understand exactly why it's in the best interests of individual citizens to be armed; it's tends to be the majority (i.e. the easily-duped) who don't get it.
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Statistically you are more likely to get shot of you own one (most likely by your own gun), so it's more like people who understand numbers also understand that psychology often leads to bad decisions.
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Statistically, you're more likely to die from a ladder fall if you own one, so our governments should bad all lawful possession of ladders to protect us from our own poor decisionmaking.
Keep your safety-padded overly-nerfed world to yourself. Not everybody wants to live in a state of constant fear in an overly protected world. You nervous nancies and your kitchen knife bans...
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Says no valid study of the US ever unless they are including suicides. Your bogus little statistic is often thrown out trying to discourage people from owning guns and then an example of someone losing control of their gun and it being turned on them is tossed out. However, the since the statistic only holds true if suicides are included the valid example should be a suicide. The truth is that roughly 22,000 suicides are committed with guns in the US and it is very likely that 99% or more of them are with a
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Those are valid numbers that you can find for yourself just by looking at federal agency websites.
The claim is that guns are causing more harm than automobiles yet we have more guns than automobiles and automobiles cause more deaths. That is pure fact from federal agencies put out by the current anti-gun administration. You can try to spin it into something different but the fact remains that an automobile in the US is more likely to kill someone than a gun.
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You claim my reasoning is wrong because an administration headed by someone opposed to private gun ownership doesn't agree.
My reasoning is very simple and you even admitted that the numbers are correct. We have fewer cars than guns in the US and we have more deaths from cars than guns in the US. The numbers say so. There is no other reasoning involved in that statement. Let's try this with some simple equations and value substitutions.
Let x = 400, y = 500, c = 10 and d = 8. It is a fact that x d. Now, we h
ponies.... (Score:4, Funny)
One of the FB gun buying/selling/trading groups that is for my local city is now known as the "awesome pony trading group". And posts are all edited to reference equines, saddles (holsters) and tack (ammo)
Facebook should ban... (Score:2)
Ask Holder (Score:2)
Did he use Facebook to sell guns to the Mexican drug cartels?
FB is missing an opportunity here to monetize (Score:2)
Re: Good (Score:1)
No, I do not need the government's permission. And the law supports my position here. Besides, it's a right, not a privilege.
Re: Good (Score:1)
It's a right to own a gun, not to be a gun dealer. There is also no constitutional right that buying a gun has to be easy. Subtle but important difference.
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It's a right to own a gun, not to be a gun dealer. There is also no constitutional right that buying a gun has to be easy. Subtle but important difference.
Liberals decry restrictions the GOP dreams up on abortions designed to make it hard or impossible to use one's Constitutional right to Choice but applaud any restrictions the Democrats dream up on doing the same to the Constitutional right to gun ownership. The inverse is true for Conservatives. What is even more amusing is that each side recognizes the Supreme Courts right to interpret the constitution when it has ruled for them and slam it when is has ruled against them. Only the Supreme Court has the Con
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People who are willing to sell to a criminal are already not doing background checks and will continue not doing background checks. What on earth makes you think that this background check regulation will actually be followed by those knowingly selling to criminals? Law enforcement already knows that criminals almost exclusively buy from other criminals. Hint: Obama and his Attorney General are not law enforcement. Neither are Mayors Bloomberg and De Blasio nor are there politically motivated Police Chiefs
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People who are willing to sell to a criminal are already not doing background checks and will continue not doing background checks. What on earth makes you think that this background check regulation will actually be followed by those knowingly selling to criminals?
Of course there will be people geting around laws. But because a person gets away with something that's against the law does not mean that there shouldn't be any laws. Your idea that we shouldn't have background checks at all because criminals will try to find ways around them is not quite sane. You an anarchist or something?
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It's a right to own a gun, not an obligation to be a gun dealer. There is also no constitutional right that buying a gun has to be easy. Subtle but important difference.
Fixed that for you.
You are right of course.
Amazing that the kooks have come to the point that they believe that deciding not to sell guns via your website is depriving them of their rights.
Gotta go now - I'm having a yard sale, and the town where I live in Texas mandated that I sell firearms at my yard sale.
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You are correct that most gun owners intellectually agree that Facebook, as a private company, has the right to not allow certain activities. However, we also understand that the government actually has laws that do not allow companies to discriminate like this and we understand that if Facebook were to issue a policy stating that it would not allow its tools to be used to transfer payments or advertise for sale something like gay-themed wedding cakes, then not only would most hailing Facebook's gun decisio
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There is also no constitutional right that buying a gun has to be easy.
What part of "shall not be infringed" did you find confusing? The authors meant the 2A to apply to citizens, the supremes have ruled that it does, NY wasn't allowed to ban saturday night specials because that makes guns expensive for poor people and you can't force people to buy a safe for the same reason.
Re: Good (Score:2)
The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.
The right to purchase arms shall not be infringed.
Spot the difference?
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And how do you propose to keep and bear something that you cannot buy? Do you honestly believe that the Founding Fathers envisioned a world where every home would have its own gunsmithing shop? Even back then, people bought their guns from those who specialized in making guns.
Or maybe you just are not as clever as you think you are and you didn't really find a loophole that can be exploited to deny 2nd amendment rights?
I'll go with the latter.
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What part of "well regulated militia" do you find confusing?
I find it confusing why so many people like yourself insist on utilizing the most common modern connotation of "regulated" instead of the one which dominated at the time, and then expect other people to follow along like they are also a bunch of dumbfucks. Regulated meant "in good working order", it did not mean "subject to rules and regulations". If you read the papers written by the authors and proponents of the 2A, they make it abundantly clear that the purpose of the amendment was indeed to secure the r
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But if you insist, at that time the writers of the Constitution absolutely believed that INDIVIDUAL STATES can and must regulate the militias to protect against foreign invasions and tyrannical acts of the federal government. So in effect arms are a means of defense against an organized invasion.
The Constitution absolutely does NOT protect the use of guns for
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And many people try to shoehorn an article of the Constitution written before the advent of handguns and automatic weapons to the present time.
It was normal for private citizens to own cannon at the time, and there were no laws preventing the owning of breech-loading firearms, or restricting their ownership to particular classes.
The Constitution absolutely does NOT protect the use of guns for individual defense or for hunting.
These uses are actually mentioned several times as reasons why American citizens should be able to own guns, by several of those involved with the passage of the 2A. The big problem is that they even mentioned a militia, because they wanted to provide some kind of rationale. You are forgetting (deliberately) that the bill
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These uses are actually mentioned several times as reasons why American citizens should be able to own guns, by several of those involved with the passage of the 2A.
Actually, no. The use of guns for personal protection was not really mentioned anywhere. The main reason is the protection of freedom. Might I quote George Washington?
It may be laid down, as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defence of it, and consequently that the Citizens of America (with a few legal and official exceptions) from 18 to 50 Years of Age should be borne on the Militia Rolls, provided with uniform Arms, and so far accustomed to the use of them, that the Total strength of the Country might be called forth at Short Notice on any very interesting Emergency.
Or perhaps:
A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent on others for essential, particularly for military, supplies.
So yes, let me reiterate: "Want to play with guns - join the military".
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So yes, let me reiterate: "Want to play with guns - join the military".
So what you're saying is that you support the strong centralized standing military that the second amendment was specifically about avoiding because it is harmful to freedom? Got it. Now I know precisely what kind of scum you are: the kind which believes that people should be beholden to their government, rather than the other way around.
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So what you're saying is that you support the strong centralized standing military that the second amendment was specifically about avoiding because it is harmful to freedom?
Actually, I'm thinking that the Constitution writers had the right idea in general. However, their approach is woefully outdated.
Now I know precisely what kind of scum you are: the kind which believes that people should be beholden to their government, rather than the other way around.
Now I know precisely what kind of scum you are: the kind which believes that people should be beholden to their whims reinforced by guns, rather than to laws agreed upon by the people. You are probably a couple of hours away from making another mass shooting in a primary school. Right?
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The right not being infringed pretty much does say that impediments to enjoying the right are, in fact, unconstitutional. How else do you get the gun to "keep and bear" if you don't buy it. The Founding Fathers understood that most people would not be making their own guns.
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Fact: The areas with the highest number of legal guns per capita in the US have the lowest crime rate.
- Criminals don't follow the law, and there are more criminals than cops. Always will be, so don't slide down that slippery slope.
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There are many gun sales in the Facebook parking lot in Menlo Park. Most days there are several pickup trucks filled with AK-47s. They just don't care.
I'm torn between "missing sarcasm tag" and "citation please." Leaning to the former.
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They want to kill us!
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And they still cant handle 'foreign' non ASCII characters in the summary...
Guns actually protect people (Score:5, Interesting)
Guns don't kill, unregulated easy access to firearms does.
Um... actually...
Firstly, private gun sales are legal. Facebook is making a blanket policy which is politically charged, which could also be applied to arranging abortions, distasteful speech, consensual sex of any non-mainstream type, and a host of others that anyone can come up with after a few minutes thought.
So in effect, they are suppressing behaviour that is completely legal.
Secondly, although guns do seem to kill a lot of people, the overall statistic of importance to check is "average expected lifespan", which is much *higher* in areas where there is easy legal access to guns.
To put this another way, if you let your kids play in the yard of a gun owner, their chance of being killed by that gun go way up, but their chances of death by *all causes* go down. If you can't maintain proper nutrition or medicine for a time because you got robbed, it affects your overall lifespan. If your neighbor has guns, it has a protective effect on you because criminals tend to go elsewhere, and so on.
Thirdly, if you like to compare England to the US, consider this Harvard study [harvard.edu] which finds (journal page 656):
[...] despite constant and substantially increasing gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in criminal violence in the 1990s.On the other hand, the same time period in the United Kingdom saw a constant and dramatic increase in violent crime to which England’s response was evermore drastic gun control including, eventually, banning and confiscating all handguns and many types of long guns. Nevertheless, criminal violence rampantly increased so that by 2000 England surpassed the United States to become one of the developed world’s most violenceridden nations..
To conserve the resources of the inundated criminal justice system, English police no longer investigate burglary and “minor assaults.” As of 2006, if the police catch a mugger, robber, or burglar, or other “minor” criminal in the act, the policy is to release them with a warning rather than to arrest and prosecute them.
Easy access to firearms actually protects people.
Personally, I dislike being mugged, robbed, burgled, and assaulted in *minor* manners, but
Re: Guns actually protect people (Score:1)
Well thought out posts (Score:2)
I love how a well thought out post that is backed by actual research is criticized by a bunch of anonymous cowards....
Oh, wait until the election.
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Flawed research based on assumptions about the UK that are not correct.
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I am glad you had the good sense to use the "no sane" qualifier. I have seen plenty of posts and statistics where they included preventing a mass murder or rape (the perpetrator being shot to death) as an unnecessary gun death.
Re:Guns actually protect people (Score:4, Informative)
It is also worth noting that British crime data is fiddled with at every level all the way up to Scotland Yard. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
Also murders in England and Whales are only counted after arrest, conviction, retrial and been jailed. This is unlike literally every other country where "Dude he was murdered and we do not know the killer" is the rule to count as a murder.
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> Also murders in England and Whales are only counted after arrest, conviction, retrial and been jailed.
That is because the conviction could ultimately be manslaughter or murder. The figures most colloquially called the murder statistics in the UK are actually the homicide statistics. Most countries actually release homicide statistics too, but they also colloquially get called murder statistics.
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It is also worth noting that British crime data is fiddled with at every level all the way up to Scotland Yard. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
Also murders in England and Whales are only counted after arrest, conviction, retrial and been jailed. This is unlike literally every other country where "Dude he was murdered and we do not know the killer" is the rule to count as a murder.
That is pretty much the difference between a death and a homicide (and an application of the innocent until proven guilty principle). There are many other classifications of death such as accidental or deliberate manslaughter (murder/homicide == intent to kill, manslaughter == unintentional death). Its not the fault of the British that other countries get it wrong.
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Um "private gun sales are legal".. Is that with or without background check? You cannot use a blanket statement when each state have different laws on private gun sale.
Right and people can show you stats where gun isn't easy access have higher life expectancy. Both side have thrown in chart and study that skew to their point.
WTH kind of argument
Making a better argument (Score:2)
Please at least make some make better argument for gun ownership
I don't know what would make a better argument than citing research published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, by, you know, a constitutional lawyer and a PhD in criminology.
But I'm not averse to learning.
What would you recommend as a better argument? How would you go about it?
Re:Guns actually protect people (Score:4, Interesting)
The rest of these point out that you're statement of "easy access to firearms actually protects people" is most likely bullshit.
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/... [factcheck.org]
http://www.nationaljournal.com... [nationaljournal.com]
http://www.nydailynews.com/new... [nydailynews.com]
http://www.inquisitr.com/18064... [inquisitr.com]
http://www.deseretnews.com/top... [deseretnews.com]
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/50... [cbsnews.com]
An informed argument (Score:5, Insightful)
An informed argument is so refreshing. Bravo!
Firstly, you are citing news articles and not published research, and others might point out the gap in credibility between our arguments. For my part, I know that your sources reflect publish papers so it's all good.
The difference between our arguments is this: I claim that looking at *gun* deaths is misleading, because the vast majority of gun incidents resolve in favor of the gun owner and do not lead to death.
The statistic of measure should be the overall fatality rate (death from all causes), not the "death by gun" rate.
So for a counter example, note that the rate of "death by anaphalactic shock" shoots way up in areas that have lots of vaccinations.
Should we thus avoid vaccinations?
All of your sources are referring to gun deaths. We could ban guns in an attempt to reduce these specific types of death, but if it is at the expense of the overall fatality rate, it's not the prudent move.
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Yes, if correlation = causation then look no further than El Salvador to prove that the more restrictive gun laws a society has, the more dangerous and the higher the murder rate will be. As in 12 times the murder rate of the US with gun laws pretty much the same as Australia and Europe.
legal sale? (Score:5, Interesting)
Porn magazine and otehr sex toy paraphenelia are legal to sell to 18+, roughly like guns, and yet some outfits refuse to stock them. As a private entity it is up to facebook to see what it wants to put up with. As such you can certainly see why a corp would avoid any non licensed sale, as it could bring them heat.
secodnely, the definition of violent crime differs in the US and UK. When you look at the crime which are considered violent in Uk they are not even in the stats in the US
US
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cj... [fbi.gov]
* And ehre is UK : https://www.gov.uk/government/... [www.gov.uk]
So you get pushed and shoved, and hurt your ankle ? In UK a Violent crime. That would not even count as aggravated assault in US : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Basically when you look into it, the myth that there is more violent crime in UK than US is jsut a myth, usually misused to pretend gun are needed for self defense. They are not. They are escalation tools, they lead mugger and petty crime to escalate the force they use in their crime.
Re:Guns actually protect people (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in the UK and hardly anyone owned a gun before the handgun ban. The rise in violent crime (which has been going down more recently) has nothing to do with gun ownership. Gun ownership has been regulated since the 19th century and by 1997 was very tightly regulated. The Dunblane massacre led to an even bigger crackdown but guns are still available to those who can prove that they have a good reason to own one.
Your study assumes that the UK had a similar gun culture as the US, when in fact our culture has never been like that. There have never been any gun sections in supermarkets for example and the idea of someone openly carrying an assault rifle would be incredible (and worrying) to people here.
The availability of cheap alcohol from supermarkets and the rise in people getting drunk before going out due to high prices in bars and clubs is probably a more likely factor in the rise in violent crime than people finding it a bit harder to get guns they never really wanted in the first place. This [wikipedia.org] is probably a better read than that study if you want to inform yourself about the UK's history with guns.
Re: Guns actually protect people (Score:2)
Are you from the UK? I never said I didn't know anyone with guns. I knew a few people but it wasn't in any way the norm like it is in the US. You're telling me you wouldn't be worried by someone you didn't know walking down the street with a military weapon strapped to their back?
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I can own one if I want one so I guess that means I'm not a slave. Seeing someone I don't know walking around with a lethal weapon would always make me wary, whether that's a gun, a knife or anything else. At least with a knife I can take it off them relatively easily because they have to come close to me to use it. A gun user can shoot me from several metres away without me even realising.
Having a hand gun in your bag is a lot different to having an assault rifle strapped to your back as if it was a zom
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Well, rocket attacks are more difficult and costly than mass murder gun attacks so maybe the prevalence of guns in Israel is helping.
Re: Guns actually protect people (Score:2)
Not much use against suicide bombers though unless these person is a really good shot. They had to build a wall to keep them out.
Re: Guns actually protect people (Score:2)
I agree. Gun ownership should be subject to similar rules as car ownership. Letting people have lethal weapons with no supervision seems like madness to me. If the general culture was based on this then I wouldn't be worried by someone with a gun. It's a matter of trust and I don't generally trust people I don't know if they have weapons in their hands.
Re:Guns actually protect people (Score:4, Insightful)
I started reading the "study" you base your entire argument on and it seemed to be a suspicious jumble of cherry-picked facts, and thus more of a political polemic with an axe to grind than an objective scientific study so I did a search to find out more about the authors and discovered that either you were purposely misleading people here or you were misled yourself.
For example, Snopes [snopes.com] highlights many of the flaws with the non-peer reviewed paper you cite as a "study":
Claim: A 2007 Harvard University study proved that areas with higher rates of gun ownership have lower crime rates.
FALSE
WHAT'S TRUE: Gun rights advocates Gary Mauser and Don Kates jointly authored a 2007 paper in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy arguing that higher rates of gun ownership correlated with lower crime rates.
WHAT'S FALSE: The paper in question was not peer-reviewed, it didn't constitute a study, and it misrepresented separate research to draw shaky, unsupported conclusions.
[...] Of primary importance is the subsequent, widely misapplied label of the word "study" with reference to the 2007 item in question. The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy describes itself as "one of the most widely circulated student-edited law reviews and the nation's leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship." Papers published in that journal are (while perhaps competitively sourced) in no way equivalent to peer-reviewed research published in a credible science-related journals as "studies." Use of the term "study" to refer that 2007 article dishonestly suggested that the assertions made by its authors were gathered and vetted under more rigorous study conditions, which didn't appear to be the case.
[...] In short, the purported 2007 Harvard "study" with "astonishing" findings was in fact a polemic paper penned by two well-known gun rights activists. Its findings were neither peer-reviewed nor subject to academic scrutiny of any sort prior to its appearance, and the publication that carried it was a self-identified ideology-based editorial outlet edited by Harvard students.
Good point (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank you.
That's a well-formed and unassailable argument, I won't be using that study as a reference in the future. If Slashdot had the "delete post" option I would use it.
Your post does not address the core argument (guns good/guns bad), but that's OK.
Let's pick this up again in the next gun control article discussion.
Correlation (Score:2)
There's a WHOLE lotta correlation there, and very little causation there.
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Correlation is better than no correlation as is the general form of anti-gun arguments.
As in, "It is simply common-sense that whenever gun laws are more restrictive, then violent crime is reduced." We can examine Chicago to disprove that fallacy within the US and we can look at El Salvador to disprove that fallacy at a national level. Gun banners like to argue a causation when there is not even a correlation.
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So in effect, they are suppressing behaviour that is completely legal.
No they aren't. Its a case of "their house, their rules".
You aren't forced to use Facebook, there are plenty of other option for selling guns that are not Facebook. They are legally permitted to choose what products they permit to be sold in their marketplace, it's no different to a Christian bookshop refusing to sell Playboy. They're not suppressing your rights, they're saying that they dont want to sell guns. If you dont like their policies, you are 100% within your rights to not use their services.
Re:Guns actually protect people (Score:4, Insightful)
This is correct, My friend experienced a burglary where they came into his house and pointed guns at his head and took all his money and expensive things he had laying around (which I told him probably predicated the robbery to begin with). He wasn't able to get his gun to defend shit, because he let his attackers into his house before they did this, because he thought they were his friends. They weren't, but this underscores the problem we're facing:
The myth is that the burglars are going to wait until the dead of night, when you're sleeping, at home, to rob your house. Then, when you hear that creak of the window opening, you can immediately wake up, sneak downstairs, catch them in the act, and murder them, completely justifiably, end of dream.
But that won't ever happen, and if you believe it will, well, then you're a fucking retard. No one is going to rob your house randomly. I mean, think of the logistics. At the very least, they're going to case your house and learn your schedule, and wait until you're on vacation or leave a garage door open or something, but even then, we're talking about a high-functioning thief, or an opportunist. Not a random-house choosing murderer who is willing to rob a house with people inside.
No man, if anyone is going to take your expensive shit and cash you leave laying around, its people who already know you leave expensive shit and cash laying around. And if that is so important to your existence that you need to defend it with your life.. why don't you get insurance on it, or put it in a bank? Wouldn't that be infinitely more secure?
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I was the target of two car thieves back in 2012. They were in the process of forcing themselves into my vehicle in a parking lot when I drew my (legal) firearm on them. I didn't fire a shot, they cut and run as soon as they saw me draw. I wound up giving testimony against them after the cops had caught them for other crimes, one of which was a murder. These two gentlemen stabbed an unarmed woman to death after forcing their way into her car. There's a non-zero chance that I would have been murdered th
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How the hell can you possibly say that the gun did not aid in his defense. That is like saying a bodyguard is of no use unless the bodyguard beats the shit of of every person that might come near the protected individual. The mere presence is often the only deterrent needed.
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The idea that a gun will protect you 100% of the time is a myth put out by gun manufacturers and their butt-buddy, the NRA. They want you to think the gun will protect you in every case; when that's not true. Most of the time, people don't have a chance to do anything but pull a gun because the criminal is armed and has zero remorse about randomly opening fire. Meanwhile, after they put 15 rounds in to you just reaching for your gun; they'
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The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of people who have successfully used firearms to stop crimes from being committed. Sometimes a person is aware enough of their surroundings to notice approaching danger (you know, the racists assholes who pay attention when being approached by groups of a different skin shade) and they are ready. Sometimes it is people noticing someone trying to kick in the front door. Sometimes it is people having let the wrong person in and still managing to retrieve a weapo
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But overall violence rates are not affected buy the availability of guns so it doesn't really matter.
The point is that if you had lower overall rates of violence than the US before you banned guns and your rates of overall violence changed in lockstep to the overall rates of violence in the US where we didn't change gun access (that is, the rates increased or decreased by the same percentages), then the statistics say that gun access has no effect on overall violence rates. The most that could be said is th
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But a law-abiding resident of Chicago won't travel to Indiana to purchase a gun because that would violate federal law; certainly for handguns and possibly for long guns as well. Federal law does not allow for the selling of handguns (private or FFL-involved) across state lines unless facilitated by an FFL holder on the receiving end which means that a Chicago resident could only travel to Indiana to purchase a firearm only if the Chicago resident has an FFL back home for the Indiana seller to ship it to. T
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So you are using the argument that criminals commit crimes to help them commit other crimes and the solution for this is to create more laws that might have no affect on society other than to cause people who were law-abiding before to no longer be law-abiding?
I have seen the argument that the guns causing the problem in Chicago are because surrounding states don't have strict enough gun laws and that this is somehow proof that all of Chicago's problems would be solved if only everywhere else had just as ma
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If they said people could yammer away on their iPhones but Androids had to be turned off, then yes, I would.
To make your analogy relevant and useful, you must compare apples to apples so let's try this one. Would you find it acceptable if Facebook issued a policy that they would no longer facilitate the advertising and selling of gay-themed wedding cakes or maybe of wedding cakes that were not obviously gay-themed?
Facebook could possibly claim that not allowing non-licensed dealers to advertise is likely to
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The number of guns legally sold person-to-person is miniscule. The vast majority of homicides are in inner cities like parts of Chicago, over the drug trade, where they are purchased through gun mules along with the drugs.
First off, you are quite wrong. About half the guns that people have (of the people that I know) were obtained through legal face to face transactions. Mostly as gifts and hand me downs, but also simply trading and buying / selling because of changing interests. There are some places and some demographics where there is few FTF transactions going on... the increasing demographic of women buying guns is mostly from retail outlets.
Face to face transactions are illegal in Illinois. Likewise, owners are requ
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As one of those so-called "gun nuts", I will say that jafiwam is probably fairly close to accurate with the numbers and you are both correct that more laws won't stop criminals from being criminals, Hell, even the most die-hard liberals shout this every time the death penalty becomes a topic of discussion.
Look at this statistic that I looked at the other day using US government numbers. The US has about 350 million guns in civilian hands and about 250 million registered motor vehicles for highway use (motor
it already exists (Score:2)
In principle, I agree, guns shouldn't be sold to dangerous individuals. But that's far easier to say than actually do. Forcing gun sales off of Facebook, where they can be tracked and logged, means the transactions will be negotiated elsewhere.
like newspaper ads, craigslist, bulletin boards, armslist.com, etc that have been around for years? As long as people meet up in person, there's nothing stopping these transactions. Otherwise, firearms need to be shipped to a Federally licensed dealer who performs the background checks.
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In principle, I agree, guns shouldn't be sold to dangerous individuals. But that's far easier to say than actually do. Forcing gun sales off of Facebook, where they can be tracked and logged, means the transactions will be negotiated elsewhere.
like newspaper ads, craigslist, bulletin boards, armslist.com, etc that have been around for years? As long as people meet up in person, there's nothing stopping these transactions. Otherwise, firearms need to be shipped to a Federally licensed dealer who performs the background checks.
Face to face transactions, in most non-facist states, have always been done without background checks.
This "OMG! No background check!" stuff is a dumbass new yucker that doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. Or, just simply lying about it with typical liberalists speak.
That said, the laws vary widely by state, know the laws in your state before beginning. In ALL of those states where FTF transactions are not allowed, the crime is the transaction, not communicating about the transaction, or reg
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DogDude, what exactly is silly and paranoid in jafiwam's post.
He points out that transfer laws vary from state to state. He rightly points out that not one single state has made a law that criminalizes the bragging about having made an illegal purchase or sale. The purchase or sale is the crime, not the talking about it. He also rightly points out that making the illegal transfer is illegal regardless of the communication media used to facilitate the transfer. He also rightly points out that Facebook is run
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In principle, I agree, guns shouldn't be sold to dangerous individuals. But that's far easier to say than actually do. Forcing gun sales off of Facebook, where they can be tracked and logged, means the transactions will be negotiated elsewhere.
So you are in favor of forcing Facebook to facilitate firearm sales when they don't want to?
Seriously, have the gun nuts become so unhinged that they demand that others be forced to sell guns?
And in a world where the kooks find background checks for criminal activity an infringement on their rights, its hilarious to use Facebook as a honeypot.
Jeezzuz Kryst on a hoverboard, that's crazy talk!
You want to sell firearms without background checks, set up your own website instead of demanding that everyone
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I am in favor of forcing Facebook to take a neutral position on the facilitation of the legal sale of any product and for forcing them to treat the legal sales of any product the same way they treat the legal sale of any other product. At least until such time that the government completely gets out of the business of regulating how individuals and private companies interact with each other. IOW, if the government is going to force a business to sell to Persons X, Y and Z if the business is selling to Perso
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I am in favor of forcing Facebook to take a neutral position on the facilitation of the legal sale of any product and for forcing them to treat the legal sales of any product the same way they treat the legal sale of any other product.
I'm in favor of allowing Facebook of doing what they damn well please. And since not selling firearms is not illegal, they don't have to.
You seem to believe in freedom of guns, but no other freedoms. Good day sir,
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They are trying. To the point that people are threatened with expulsion from state run universities for committing such aggressive acts as asking "So, where you from?" (yes, they call it microaggression)
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On what grounds would you confiscate private property? Any sensible gun law would be less restrictive than what we have today.
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can you liberal whackjobs and nutjobs that are so afraid that you piss your pants at the very mention of a gun ever discuss guns in a rational manner without making the claim that a .22 is a 9mm is a rocket launcher is an atomic bomb?
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Getting really sick of yet another post from an individual with fewer freedoms than I have complaining about my freedoms. If I wanted to read posts about people being envious of freedom, I'd read blogs written by death row inmates.