Debate about Gun Control

[Eric the Green]

(10-17-2017, 08:33 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(10-17-2017, 02:41 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But isn't it interesting that overall, despite all the hype about Chicago guns and murders, Illinois has a good record on gun laws AND gun violence. Yes, a few urban areas where poor people are still concentrated, thanks to our inadequate federal social programs and low taxes, have more murders, more drug gangs and more criminals who can go next door to a red state and buy or steal as many guns as they want with their drug money, thanks to our drug wars and opioid epidemics. I wouldn't want to live in a black ghetto. But virtually all urban areas in the USA are "Democratic strongholds" today, because urban areas are urbane, well-informed, diverse, and not parochial deserts locked into traditionalist delusions and capitalist, self-reliance memes that blame blacks and poor people for their low taxes (but too high according to them). 

Urban Democratic governments, you could well say, should do better to help their poor citizens, if they could (which they can't, according to Republicans, because that perpetuates dependence). Supposedly urbane but poor cities and their violence, you say, proves Democratic Party policies don't work.

But how much can urban mayors and councils do by themselves? The fact is, blue states are far better off than red states, because they vote Democratic, have social programs, make investments in education, health and infrastructure, have gun control, and have regulations on pollution and mistreatment of workers and consumers. Blue states are safer and more prosperous than red states. That makes our urban areas and blue states much better places to live, and consequently also more expensive to live in, because they are the desirable places. So, because people have to pay more, although they also earn more, in order to live in blue states, and give more to the federal government than red states do, but get less back, resources are limited for these cities to do ALL that should be possible for all their people. But, they do better than the red states do at that. Parts of Chicago may be in trouble, but look at New York, near the top in gun laws and near the bottom in gun deaths; who wouda thot back in 1970 that New York City would be one of the safest places to live? Maybe Chicago will get there too, if they keep on the blue path. And Los Angeles too. Illinois is rated 8th in gun laws, and has the 12th best rate of gun violence. Illinois' slightly higher level and rank in gun violence compared to its gun law rating would be entirely due to the lax gun laws and huge exports from red state Indiana next door. Even so, Indiana's rank for gun violence is slightly worse than its gun law ranking. You see a similar problem in Maryland, which has some new strict gun laws, but Maryland criminals have easy access to guns from the red and purple states to the south and west.
http://lawcenter.giffords.org/scorecard/

But thanks for the discussion and your views; it gives me a good basis for responding as best I can. And maybe the truth emerges sometimes from discussions.

And I'm so proud of my state on this issue

It's interesting to know that the grade doesn't matter when it comes to the results. A B+ should have less deaths caused by/related to gun violence than a C+ for your view to have any merit with an educated/intelligent gun owner. I'm sorry but you come across as someone who is uneducated/ignorant. Don't feel bad, you're not alone, lots of blues come across to me as being that way. Uppity Blues are pretty much clueless people. I don't know why uppity blues are so clueless and often classified as loonies by the educated folks who reside some where in the middle. I don't read as many books as my so-called uneducated friends. It would be interesting to see how you'd react when facing a regular group of educated people that you have been conditioned to believe, treat and view as uneducated people without thinking twice. I doubt a criminal is going to travel to Indiana to buy a gun legally. I assume a criminal will contact another criminal and purchase them illegally or purchase a bunch of them that were stolen from a gun shop located in Indiana or any other state in the Union.

You are splittling hairs on those stats. Both Minnesota (C+) and Illinois (B+) have gun laws that are more advanced than the nation, #12 and #8 respectively in their gun law ranking. And they both have lower gun death rates, even though their ranks are reversed. But Chicago is next to Indiana, which exports lots of guns to Chicago. Wisconsin is also more permissive than Illinois, rating a C-. Criminal gangs in Chicago do indeed get their guns legally from Indiana, where it is easier to get guns legally. Most red states like Indiana have no restrictions at all, to speak of. And, since guns are so common in America, even in blue states, where laws may have been permissive not long ago, criminals can easily steal them in any state. But it's much easier pickins in red states like Indiana, because they have the most guns available to steal.

Also, there are many factors that contribute to any one measurement of human behavior such as the number of gun deaths per capita. Being a blue state in general helps to lower violence in general, because of the better social support. Vermont, for example, is near the top in most other rankings of well-being and social support among blue states, so although its gun death rate falls lower than its rank on the other scales, thanks to its grade-F permissive gun laws, it is still safer than red states in gun deaths, because of its strong Democratic-Party-created social support system. The same applies to Minnesota, which has been a blue state longer and more consistently than most others, even if it's less blue now.

Republican voters certainly are the clueless ones, even if well-educated. I would not see you as in the "middle" in your views, but there is always hope; if you think you are wiser than myself or others, so much the better. Let's see you unfold your wisdom, and see who appreciates and learns from it. Since I am educated and well-informed, and also open to human potential and spiritual truth, I would not be likely to react to people based merely on conditioning, even if I express my liberal/left views here without much restraint. And I am well aware of who is educated, and who is not. That's not very hard to spot. 

And it's been shown indeed that some very conservative folks are as well-educated and well-read as many liberals are, especially when it comes to certain issues like climate change, of which I am more particularly aware. Educated folks are just not the primary source of support for the Trump wing of the Republican Party, or Trump-voting independents. Trump voters, it is also well-known, are less well-educated and less well-read than others. They vote and support Trump on the basis largely of fear and prejudice. But those are general trends; exceptions apply.