RE: Which Do You Value More: Freedom or the Well-being Freedom Brings?
will have an impact on how much damage is accomplished
That's what I'm talking about. Well-being will be impacted dramatically different based on which tool is used. I'm surprised that's not obviously the point here. If guns were hard to get, yes, people might use cars or bats or knives or whatever. Just as if nukes or chemical weapons were easier to get, they might use those instead of guns. The point is, the tool definitely matters and matters a great deal. If we can compare and contrast how much violence happens using a specific tool and we have a way to lower that violence by changing the stigmas (or creating them) around that tool, then we can change the outcome in terms of well-being for everyone else.
Maybe focusing on individuals who want to harm others is a primary concern we should have. To me, I think that's a bit utopian as we will always have a percentage of the population which is crazy and will harm others. If we can limit the amount of harm they can do, then that's a good step in the right direction.
You and I haven't even gotten to the point of agreeing on the problem. If we can get there and we agree the data shows availability of guns increases the amount of gun-related violence in the world, then we can start thinking about appropriate approaches to solving that problem without making other things worse (such as systemic risk of totalitarian rule over an unarmed population).
For now, the best I can come up with is encouraging people to use defensive weapons for self-defense and stigmatizing weapons which are clearly designed and used for offense. Just as sane people don't go out trying to get their own nukes or chemical weapons, what if sane people also don't try to get deadly killing machines? That might be a start. Then, if we had that shared cultural perspective, those who are trying to obtain firearms would be seen as threats to everyone else who is only interested in purely defensive tools.
Alright, so I was misunderstanding the thrust of the conversation. When I read it the first time and started reading your replies, I found it out of character for someone who shares a similar ideology with me to be calling for sanctions against property. I apologize for the confusion.
So now that we're on the same page - addressing the availability of weapons - what makes a gun an offensive weapon and not a defensive one? For example, I've never used my pistol to kill anyone. Assuming this remains the case for as long as the weapon functions (or I die, whichever is first), how is that not a purely defensive tool?
That was the point of my post. We too easily get stuck in modes of thinking according to our labels and identities that sometimes we miss the forrest for the trees.
If you wanted to own a nuclear weapon, then yes, I would use social sanctions against your desire for that property as I would see that as psychotic.
A pistol is more effective as a defensive weapon than, say, a 50 caliber rifle with a belt feed. All of these weapons can be thought about in terms of their offensive and defensive capabilities. As can other defensive tools that are not guns. Clip capacity, silencers, range, power... these all relate to how effective the weapon is as a killing machine. If our goal is to kill a bunch of people, that's pretty sick. If our goal is to stop or disable an attacker, well, there may be better tools than guns.
Your contention was that there are purely defensive weapons, of which class firearms are not part of. Unless you can provide an example of a member of this class, I think we have yet to make progress. It's one thing to say that guns aren't purely defensive weapons, but do you have some example of what would be a purely defensive weapon? Or is your contention simply that guns are not the best tools for defense?
I'm saying some guns (and weapons in general) have different characteristics for offense versus defense. A shotgun, for example, is better for home defense than a sniper rifle. Similarly, things like tasers, pepper spray, bean bag shooters, pepper balls via paint ball shooters, etc have far less useful functionality for contributing to mass death. Yes, they can still be used to harm others in an offensive way, just a knife, bat, or wrench can, but the design of the tool does matter. If all the gun lovers who go on about the need for defense spent time focusing on building better defensive tools which can't easily be used for massive levels of offense, then maybe we could start shifting public opinion more easily regarding the weapons which are specifically designed for offensive use. If we value the NAP, there's really no reason for an offensive weapon like that in the hands of the general public. Maybe some unique situations require preemptive use of force by trained professionals like Detroit Threat Management which I mentioned in my post, but even then, they specialize in non-lethal descelation techniques.
I'm arguing for what I think could be a better future with greater well-being. The data seems to suggest reducing the amount of guns helps.
While I don't disagree that there may be more effective means to defending oneself and one's property than guns, I don't see how you're drawing the conclusion that the NAP necessarily precludes people owning firearms. You're also equating firearms with being "specifically designed" for offensive use, which is patently false. They're designed to eliminate threats. Whether those threats arise from the wielder's aggression or from the aggression of others against the wielder is what categorizes offensive action from defensive action.
In other words, your categorizing a class of threat-elimination tools on the basis of the way in which they could be used. This distinction is no different than the one that separate personal and private property. A gun is either defensive or offensive based on the method it's used. There is no "intrinsic" offensive quality to firearms.
Bah. The blockchain ate my comment and it never showed up. :(
Do you see nukes and shotguns with beanbags as essentially identical with the only difference being how they are used? Is there now spectrum we can rationally discuss between weapons?
I see them as intrinsically different due to their potential harm and because of the statistics I've seen which indicate if you make it easier for people who want to cause harm to cause a lot of it then the amount of harm people experience will go up.
I never said they're identical. I said that their offensive and defensive value is a based on their use. I will concede that nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons have other considerations that can make them potentially harmful outside of their use. For example, negligence in the construction of a nuclear weapon could lead to radiation exposure. Negligence in storing chemical and biological weapons could lead to exposure and harm to unintended people.
However, assuming no negligence on the part of the construction and storage of these weapons, they are inert and not a threat to anyone until they are used in an offensive capacity. We're talking about the NAP, correct? What is aggressive about a weapon that is never used to commit aggression?
I'm not suggesting you can't voluntarily dissociate with people who choose to own and utilize weapons aside from beanbags and pepper spray and tasers and what-have-you. However, your logic is flawed. Every weapon we've discussed is the same in this regard: they are neither offensive nor defensive until they're used for a specific purpose. You can't impute a purpose into a tool; the purpose lies exclusively in the person using it.
You're correct in asserting that they all have different capacities to cause harm. That speaks nothing to whether they are "killing machines" rather than "purely defensive" tools.
Well, there are some who would disagree as a matter of philosophy:
Whether or not we can come to an agreement on that point, we could step back and look at raw statistics from a purely cause and effect, materialistic determinism perspective. If weapons of mass destruction were openly available to anyone of the human species, would the amount of mass murder increase or decrease? If we argue it would increase because more people would have the ability to use them in immoral ways, then we have to go further and say, "Are we okay with that or should we do something about it?"
If we're okay with it because the logic is sound and only the individuals choosing to use them for immoral action have anything to do with the situation, then I'd say we're being logically consistent on one front while being completely illogical on the more important front of whether or not whole cities are being destroyed. It's like missing the forrest for the trees.
So, if we decide it's all about human action to actually use a device to harm someone else and that's all that matters but we have statistical data we could refer to that might tell us restricting access to certain things actually increasing well-being for the most number of people, what then? We could start discussing the best ways to restrict that access. I'm not convinced it would only have to be done via threats of violent government force. It could also be about education, social shaming, ostracism, etc.
We're talking in extremes here with weapons of mass destruction because I'm trying to find a point of common ground where we recognize the goal should be increasing well-being, not sticking to our dogmatic perspectives on what is logical and what is not. If someone nukes a city because they could easily get a nuke, the logic doesn't really matter much anymore, IMO. The facts of reality would clearly show we, as a society, probably should have done more to prevent easy access to something which is designed to be so destructive.
But, anyway, I've taken this as far as I can and since we're already buried deep in this thread, it's doubtful anyone else will benefit from this conversation. I appreciate that you have consistent logical perspectives to support your views. I hope you recognize that I too hold to those views while also working to understand statistically reality when it comes to what increases well-being and what doesn't.