The Gaming Den

Hypothetical situation:

You need money, fast. You're not smart enough to come up with a better way, so you decide to mug someone. You have a gun.

Situation 1: Legal conceal an carry. You mug someone, and as they go to get thie wallet out of their purse, you shoot them. It looked like maybe they were going for a concealed weapon, and you're not gonna risk that.

Situation 2: No concealed weapons. You choose a target who doesn't have a holster, and mug them. They take their wallet out of their purse and toss it to you. You remove the cash, and toss it back.

That said, I'm anti-gun control from a purely moral standpoint. But I'm not under the illusion that it makes me any safter. I'm less safe, but more "Free." Whatever "Free" means.

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1127943675[/unixtime]]Hypothetical situation:

You need money, fast. You're not smart enough to come up with a better way, so you decide to mug someone. You have a gun.

Situation #3: You take the gun to a gun shop, sell it, likely get more money than you would get mugging people until you get caught. How mch do you typically carry on you in cash these days? $40? Guns are $200+, in my experience.

Being someone actually in the Mississippi region right now, I can tell you that guns don't make people any god damned safer. However satisfying it may be to take pot shots at the people scavenging in your rubble pile looking for pieces of your home, it's in no way likely to defuse a tense situation. The scavengers are hungry and desperate, yes, but they aren't looking to hurt anyone. The people with "You Loot We Shoot" signs are rightfully feared - and shunned - by everyone. Even, perhaps especially, by the aid workers.

If you draw a weapon, you've broken the social contract, and the Red Cross will not feed you. I suppose that makes you "free". Free of the ties that bind us to our fellow man and hold you up when you fall. If you want that sort of freedom, you're welcome to it.

-Username17

Will just inherited a .25 from an aunt of his, and it just exactly fits into the fold of his wallet. Not going to help him much against the kids with AK-47s up the block See March 16, 2005 entry from his house, but very spy-thriller cool.

And while I'm not entirely sure that Will should be allowed to carry guns around the city, I'm more concerned about the number of times his ball python has escaped and the damage his wolfhound can do when it gets excited.

I just finished reading a very interesting book that proposes the idea that murder rates go up with an increase in the overall prosperity of a country. Is anyone familiar with this notion or familiar with a source of info that might confirm/deny it?

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1126902492[/unixtime]]Of course, if the lock breaks, the house is invaded, what security does a gun buy you?

The ability to ambush the person coming in. Look at it this way... you're a burglar coming into someone's house at night. You probably don't know the house layout, it's probably dark, and it's likely that if someone in the house was lying in wait to shoot you, they could.

Honestly I'd never want to ever try breaking into a house in an area with a lot of gun owners.

RandomCasualty at [unixtime wrote:1128129208[/unixtime]]Honestly I'd never want to ever try breaking into a house in an area with a lot of gun owners.

That's possibly why you're not a criminal. Neighborhoods with lots of gun owners have more break-ins, theft. ...Guns are very valuable, as pointed out before.

How often does this 'ambush' mean shooting a family member, dog, or such? This does not make you safer.

Maj at [unixtime wrote:1128117523[/unixtime]]I just finished reading a very interesting book that proposes the idea that murder rates go up with an increase in the overall prosperity of a country. Is anyone familiar with this notion or familiar with a source of info that might confirm/deny it?

It's more the disparity in prosperity, not the prosperity it self.

-Crissa

Is it that areas with more gun ownership have more break-ins and theft, or that areas with more break-ins and theft have more gun ownership?

Essence at [unixtime wrote:1128205142[/unixtime]]Is it that areas with more gun ownership have more break-ins and theft, or that areas with more break-ins and theft have more gun ownership?

Being as guns are a major target for theft... Probably the former.

-Crissa

Source?

Essence at [unixtime wrote:1128270849[/unixtime]]Source?

Police? Why?

They're mostly small, obviously portable, and worth more than the same volume in cash.

How is this hard to believe?

-Crissa

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1128358510[/unixtime]]

Essence at [unixtime wrote:1128270849[/unixtime]]Source?

Police? Why?

They're mostly small, obviously portable, and worth more than the same volume in cash.

Um. No, not really. An average gun takes up more volume than it's value in cash of any bill larger than a 1. I can and have fit over $500 in 5s in my pocket, I cannot fit an average sized pistol in my pocket. Further, it's far easier to trace a gun than cash, jewelry, or computers.

How is this hard to believe?

Well, it's a poorly constructed causal argument, following the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. So, I see no reason to believe it.

Neeek at [unixtime wrote:1128360378[/unixtime]]Well, it's a poorly constructed causal argument, following the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. So, I see no reason to believe it.

Wow.

You have small pockets.

A snub-nosed .32 will fit in a pocket. It costs about $500 on up and takes the equivalent amount of space as those $5 bills you're yabbing about.

But, I suppose since the Justice Department doesn't publish handy-dandy charts on what was stolen, you'll just believe they don't get stolen?

What, do I have to dig up a police officer to tell you things get stolen?

-Crissa

Calm down, Crissa. Someone asking you to cite your sources, and expecting them to be credible, is not unreasonable.

Game On,
fbmf

fbmf at [unixtime wrote:1128378611[/unixtime]]Calm down, Crissa. Someone asking you to cite your sources, and expecting them to be credible, is not unreasonable.

Yes, but while I can say 'the sky is blue' or 'a liter of water fits in a coat pocket' I don't expect to be asked for sources.

Things get stolen. Things which are valuable are more likely to be stolen. The fact that something is tracable has never stopped it from being stolen before - look at autos, the source of the most dollars lost from theft in the US. (Ask the Department of Justice for that one, or google 'auto theft'. For some reason, while local police collect data on firearm theft, the Justic Department does not seem to)

I'm not angry. I'm just unable to get to any other site on the internet reliably today. Including that great absorber of time this year, WoW.

Bleah.

-Crissa

Resale value-to-weight ratio has little to do with theft. And weight to weight of cash has even less.

If it did, Fred wouldn't be out $350 for his 15 gallon (ie 95 lbs) air-compressor which got swiped last Wednesday.

Now a reconditioned compressor of the exact same model can be found for only $225 online, so I'm guessing that the secondary market for a hot one is going to be somewhere less than that. For comparison, 95 lbs of PENNIES are worth about $135.

Josh_Kablack at [unixtime wrote:1128464756[/unixtime]]Resale value-to-weight ratio has little to do with theft...
For comparison, 95 lbs of PENNIES are worth about $135.

Do you know how hard (expensive) it is to turn pounds of coins into cash?

Not sure what the rest of the story was supposed to mean... 95lbs? A 5lb dry weight air compressor can cost $300, easy; it's all in how steady the flow of air is and how much pressure it can create. Are you saying your friend's air compressor was not portable, not easily salable, or capable of being put into work which could be used to create cash?

Someone stole the headlamp from my bicycle. It's not valuable, in fact, I was planning on replacing it. My spouse's headlamp, also stolen, was far more valuable. Both are inscribed with my name and number - my lamp is clear plastic, and the inscription is visible from the outside. The mountings were not stolen. Theft is not always logical. But it does tend to be things which can be removed from where it was left - no one ever stole my cast cement, but they did steal a boat.

-Crissa

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1128502932[/unixtime]] Do you know how hard (expensive) it is to turn pounds of coins into cash?

Costs me nothing (other than time, of course). My bank has free, self-serve coin counting. *shrug*

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1127812289[/unixtime]]

Absentminded_Wizard at [unixtime wrote:1127787156[/unixtime]]What events in New Orleans? Apparently, most of the reported violent crimes were urban myths.

Yes, quite.

None of the crime in those false reports was armed people defending themselves.

So, this helps your position how?

It does, however, supports my position that the armed people were not polite; and that the unarmed people were quite alot more safe than we were told. Well, safe being a relative term.

-Crissa

The problem is that your first post on the subject assumed that people were being victimized by armed thugs everywhere, which you took as a sign that we need gun control. You can't later say that, because there was actually less violent crime than initially reported in this den of armed wolves, that unarmed people are safe. If all unarmed people in New Orleans were hermetically sealed in an environment free of armed people, you might have a point. Otherwise, your argument is specious.

Neeek wrote:Well, it's a poorly constructed causal argument, following the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. So, I see no reason to believe it.

Actually, it's the correlation/causation fallacy, but it is fallacious. Assuming that there is, in fact, a lot of burglary in neighborhoods with high gun ownership, we still don't know from that fact alone whether one caused the other.

Absentminded_Wizard at [unixtime wrote:1128941899[/unixtime]]

Neeek wrote:So, I see no reason to believe it.

Actually, it's the correlation/causation fallacy, but it is fallacious. Assuming that there is, in fact, a lot of burglary in neighborhoods with high gun ownership, we still don't know from that fact alone whether one caused the other.

Finally, someone actually got the point.

Absentminded_Wizard at [unixtime wrote:1128941899[/unixtime]]The problem is that your first post on the subject assumed that people were being victimized by armed thugs everywhere, which you took as a sign that we need gun control. You can't later say that, because there was actually less violent crime than initially reported in this den of armed wolves, that unarmed people are safe. If all unarmed people in New Orleans were hermetically sealed in an environment free of armed people, you might have a point. Otherwise, your argument is specious.

Actually, the assumption was by the reader - the armed crimes to which I referred still happened; the violent crimes which didn't happen... Well, they were to have happened in masses of unarmed evacuees.

Which supports my point that an armed society isn't a polite one, doesn't it?

• These things did happen:
• Looters, gangs use weapons to evade police and media.
• Squatters use weapons to threaten rescue operations in in the concept of defending themselves.
• Security forces use weapons to threaten evacuees, rescue/survival operations.
• Police use weapons to violate evacuees' civil rights by not allowing them to move to safety.

• These things did not happen:
• Armed thugs preyed upon unarmed evacuees at shelters.
• Armed and unarmed thugs murder evacuees, squatters.
• Evacuees fire weapons at rescue heliocopters, sniper fire.

-Crissa

I doubt guns are all that commonly stolen. While it's true that they are tempting targets for theft, they're often pretty well hidden, so they're not going to be stolen anymore than jewelry you keep in your house.

In a very minor nitpick of details, Tom DeLay was a Representative, not a Senator.

I withdrew my post which was appended here; as it was unrelated to the rest of the thread.

Apologies to Tom Delay for promoting him accidentally from Representative to Senator.

-Crissa

DUDE REALLY?
You just skullfucked a zombie post from 2005 just to say Thumbs up?