13 Dead in Shooting in Thousand Oaks California

[EricHiggin]

sundin13 said:

EricHiggin said:

Sure I can. Imagine if everyone immediately believed in the science behind global cooling way back before global warming became a thing, and we started pumping out CO2 far beyond what we've been doing for the sake of heating up the planet as quickly as possible. Would that have been a good idea, or should we have concluded the evidence isn't good enough and to keep asking questions and keep looking, only to find it was the opposite of what we initially thought? Which was still wrong apparently based on today's science.

You said earlier that "the economy would not come to a screeching halt if guns suddenly disappeared." I took that to mean pretty much anything related to guns. While I still think it matters, if it didn't impact that sector, then the chaos that would ensue would probably tank the economy anyway. You make the point of evidence, yet you pointed out my own personal evidence earlier would not have been good enough. How is that any different then me saying the evidence you've provided isn't good enough?

What's the point in talking about the difference in mortality rates between different weapon types, if there's no point to be made about that in the first place? Or is there?

Global cooling has never been an accepted or dominant scientific hypothesis, but even if it had been, we are not talking about an extremely complicated aspect of our planet involving literally hundreds of variables that we knew little about several decades ago. It is simply the question "How often do people die when they are shot". There is no equivalence between the two. They are not remotely the same thing and bringing them up in the same breath seems to be little more than desperation to justify a point in the face of evidence that you continually refuse to acknowledge.

Beyond that, again, there is a different level of statistical significance between one event and FOURHUNDREDTHOUSAND events. One is going to be just a tiny bit more representative than the other. This point is absolute nonsense, man.

As for what the point in talking about this is, I feel like it is fairly self evident. I feel like you are getting hung up on the radical idea that gun control doesn't mean "taking everyone's guns". There are about a million different steps between where we are now and that point, some of which I support and some of which I don't. That said, the point in this discussion is to counter the "yeah, but what about knives" response that tends to come up whenever someone talks about gun control. Knives are significantly less deadly than firearms, so even if there was a 1:1 replacement, we would still typically be better off in terms of crime outcomes.

There were people back then who were sure they were correct even if it wasn't a solid majority, and they were proven to be wrong. There are people who are convinced that guns should be more regulated or banned, and some that are not. Even more recently, they found their climate changes predictions were way off and created new ones that seem even more dire than before. I'm not asking for why global warming or cooling is happening, just a yes or no, just like I'm not asking about how these people were injured specifically, and why etc. We also don't know whether or not these people should be considered directly killed by the gun because you don't know for sure if another medical team/facility could have treated them in a manner that aloud them to live. What if harsh weather slowed the trip to the hospital and that much needed time lost caused the death? You could go down the same rabbit hole either way if you really wanted to.

One event that potentially implicates 7.7 billion human beings, every last person on earth, plus the other living creatures, vs 400,000?

Knives show based on the stats presently available, to be less deadly, yes. That isn't a very strong argument though because of the "whatabout" factor. Nobody really knows what will happen to the rate of violence, or stabbings, or other unanticipated weapons that could be created and or used if guns are heavily restricted or banned. A lot like climate change. Nobody really knows what's going to happen for sure, whether we do something about it or not. We have stats that give us an idea, but that's proven so far to only be a fraction of what is necessary to factually know, if we ever really can, taking every single thing related to the weather as well as harmful violent acts with weapons into account.