A spicy little episode tonight! Lots of just hanging out and chatting. A bit of politics, but nothing too bad. And an age-old question we didn’t know was being asked. Enjoy!
QUESTIONS:
Is pizza a sandwich? This question divided my office for weeks. –Beth
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Haven’t listened to the episode yet but I already feel like I have to comment with a big NO!. Pizza is not a sandwich.
There are specific instances in which it makes sense to connect homicide rates with gun availability. In the specific instance of mass murders, it does seem to be the case that increased availability of guns, especially assault weapons, increases the number of deaths. And that would make sense as a gun is an instrumental cause. If you had one army with guns and another with baseball bats, the ones with guns would be at a distinct advantage.
Availability of guns has also been shown to have an effect on suicide rates. Also denying gun ownership to people with a history of alcohol abuse has been shown to have an overall effect of lowering both violent crime and robbery. I think in these two instances maybe there’s some kind of interplay between the state of mind and ease of using guns.
Except… I’m finding it difficult to find agreement, even among pro-gun-control sources, as to what “assault weapon” means. That term makes me think of fully automatic weapons, and some pro-gun-control sources even use “assault weapon”, “assault rifle”, and “automatic weapon” interchangeably, but then they refer to actual shootings (like Sandy Hook and Parkland) where no fully automatic weapon was used.
But even going with the more specific “semi-automatic weapon” (used, as I understand it, in both Sandy Hook and Parkland)… I do not think it can be reasonably denied that, in specific instances, as you say, a weapon with a higher potential rate of fire is more deadly than a weapon with a lower potential rate of fire. This is more evident in crowd shootings (Las Vegas, theater shootings, or your example of “army vs. army”) than in non-crowd shootings, because in non-crowd situations the shooter must pause and aim, and if this brings his rate of fire down to, say, thirty rounds per minute or slower, then a non-semi-automatic weapon can be (and likely will be) just as deadly. Meaning, to prevent or lower the fatality rate of non-crowd mass shootings, simply banning semi-automatic rifles (excluding semi-auto handguns), which is the main thing I’ve been hearing suggested by commentators, will not suffice. Tony’s position, as I understand it, that a ban of semi-auto rifles would merely be a first step toward further gun bans, makes more sense (and I presume his perspective isn’t unusual among “the left”, though it’s not often openly stated).
(I’m also presuming that any ban will come with confiscation, of course. It’s been said that if certain gun laws hadn’t been allowed to expire in 2004, Sandy Hook wouldn’t have happened. However, the law that expired hadn’t called for a confiscation of semi-automatic rifles and magazines of a certain size in 1994 when the law took effect, so the Sandy Hook shooter would still have had access to his arsenal even if the 2004 law hadn’t expired.)
The thing about some school shootings, though (or perhaps all of them, I don’t have enough information to say for certain) is that most of the casualties do occur when the shooter finds a place where students are hiding in a group, and then, obviously, it becomes a crowd-shooting scenario, and concern regarding the kind of weapon being used (and the size of the magazines being used) becomes more relevant to how lethal the attack turns out to be.
Besides all of that, though… guns and access to guns clearly aren’t the only issues that need to be considered in all of this. In fact, gun violence is just a symptom. We do treat symptoms of illness, of course, and I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t, but we must also put a priority on the cause or causes of the illness. Otherwise, we’ll fail in the end. I’ve seen many commentators say that the only or main difference between the US and other countries is “our access to guns”. But other countries have guns, too. Not as many as we do, but enough that they ought to be having *some* of the same problems that we’re having, at some level that makes sense in proportion to the guns that they have. But the math just isn’t there… our problems are out of proportion in comparison to the rest of the world in a way that cannot be accounted for by per capita gun ownership alone. So while we’re looking at guns and other symptoms, we MUST also examine causal factors.
I feel I need to clarify my “baseball bat” example… I didn’t use that example to compare guns to baseball bats. I used the example to demonstrate that a headline that states that gun violence goes down in a place where guns are removed isn’t communicating surprising or even helpful information. In fact, I suspect such headlines intend for the casual reader to think that removing guns from an area lowers homicide rates overall, which is rarely the case (and perhaps why the writer of the headline resorts to such a misleading tactic). I don’t point this out as an argument opposing gun control. I point it out as an issue of logic. And I do believe that if good arguments can be made for gun control, it’s those arguments that ought to be put forward rather than tautologies.
I’m every bit as critical of bad arguments made by the other side of the debate.
Because if we’re really interested in solving this problem — and I do believe we all are, even people who are against banning semi-automatic weapons — then we need to look at facts and put forth sensible, logical arguments. We certainly shouldn’t be hurling ad hominem attacks at one another, as I often hear people on both sides of the debate doing.
Which… I realize by saying that, I’m preaching to the choir. This comment is in response to you, Jas, but obviously it isn’t addressed to just you. This issue has me awake tonight, as it turns out. I hope you don’t mind my venting a bit in my response. I’m not frustrated with you! 🙂 It’s just… well, it’s not just this very important issue, but it’s also how incapable many people seem to be of rationally discussing it. It makes me thankful for people like you and our other listeners! And Tony!
Sometimes Tony. 🙂
1. Even though there is disagreement about definitions, the point I’d like to see the pro-gun side of the debate admit to is that the kind of weapon used makes a difference in how many people get killed. If it didn’t, the English wouldn’t have won the Battle of Agincourt. So then if that point can be agreed on, debate can begin about definitions and where lines might be drawn. Lines are already drawn in that civilians can’t own every weapon available to the military. So can those lines be drawn in a more restrictive way without people jumping onto the slippery slope argument that any redrawing of that line=banning all guns?
2. Culture: agreed that there is a larger discussion that needs to take place. I don’t think all the factors are able to be clearly separated from each other though so it’s a complicated discussion. Part of American culture is that we seem to be a gun culture. We seem to think individually and collectively that problems can be solved by guns.
I read an article the other day that proposed an interesting hypothesis about the U.S. Not sure whether I completely buy it or not but thought it was worth mentioning. The hypothesis was that the U.S. has largely been settled by groups escaping persecution in their homelands, and that this fact has lead the U.S. to be more of a bully culture than other countries–sort of in an analogy to the way some bullying victims become bullies.
3. Agreed regarding the tautology. However, as I said above, there actually is evidence on particular points about the relation of gun availability to violence and crime. The strongest connection is that between suicide and gun availability. And really in the debate about guns I think that that connection often gets overlooked. Not only is the connection strong, but the number of people dying is much higher than in mass shootings.
4. Where most people on the left stand–I’m not sure. If I had to guess, I’d say most people on the left do not support an outright ban. And on the point of confiscation–I don’t think it will ever happen in the U.S. The rioting in response would be far too wide spread and uncontrollable.
1. One obstacle in the way of pro-gun people admitting that the kind of gun used can have a significant impact upon the number of people killed is, when it comes to rifles in particular, most pro-gun people don’t think of the semi-auto feature as a rapid fire feature. It’s a convenience feature. And the reason they don’t see it as a rapid fire feature is because they almost never rapid fire their semi-auto rifle. They also know that even in most tactical situations the rapid fire capability isn’t called upon. If you explain to them that in a crowd-shooting situation it can be more deadly, all they will say is that only criminals would use it that way (and they mean that… it’s hard to imagine, in modern times, a legitimate police or military tactic that would allow firing into a crowd of people) and they’d insist that what criminals do with a weapon shouldn’t lead to the weapon being taken from law-abiding citizens. Also, they’d point out that the goal isn’t for there to be five kids dead next time rather than a dozen, the goal is to have zero kids dead so why are we even talking about lowering the kill rate? Now, I don’t think these objections on the part of the pro-gun folks are insurmountable, but they have to be understood and taken into account if they’re going to be properly addressed. For example, if it’s true that most semi-auto rifle owners don’t use the semi-auto feature for rapid fire, just convenience, then how much of a burden would it be for them to not have the feature at all? In fact, would a populace without semi-auto rifles even really be less effective in fighting hostile forces, foreign or domestic (as they believe the 2nd Amendment is designed to allow them to do) if the rapid-fire feature isn’t even used that much in tactical situations? Pointing out that rapid fire has been a deciding factor in some battles is problematic for two reasons. First, examples that pertain to a time when armies lined up across from each other, essentially so one crowd of people could fire at will at another crowd of people, will only be scoffed at by pro-gun types. But second, if you do convince someone to listen to that argument, it’ll just make the pro-gun type think civilians do need semi-autos and maybe full-autos if they hope to stand up to a modern invading army or rogue state. Finally, rather than talking about a different kind of gun having a lower kill rate, one should focus on how much easier it might be to confront and stop a shooter who must pump or bolt or lever between every shot, and must switch out the magazine after ten rounds rather than thirty. (Not as easy as some seem to think, but probably significantly easier.) These arguments don’t prove that gun control will help, but they do present compelling arguments that a pro-gun person can’t just dismiss out of hand. They certainly beat arguments that assert that a politician taking money from the NRA is morally equivalent to a school shooter, an supremely unhelpful (and untrue) assertion I’ve heard made. (For the record, I think any politician who takes money from any special interest is ethically and, yes, morally compromised, but not to the point where they deserve to be equated with child killers.)
2. Honestly, I don’t perceive that the US is a gun culture, or a culture that believes that problems are solved with guns. However, there’s a very strong gun sub-culture in the US. The US isn’t the only country with a strong gun sub-culture, but I think it’s fairly obvious that the US gun sub-culture is unmatched by the gun sub-cultures anywhere else. The US gun sub-culture includes police and military, as well as gangs. It doesn’t include everyone who owns a gun. I will say this, though… in media, guns are often portrayed as solutions to a number of problems. Almost always on TV and in film if a woman feels unsafe, she immediately thinks to get a gun rather than, you know, taking self-defense classes or buying mace. I’m not sure, though, how often the average American jumps right to “I need to buy a gun” to solve a particular problem, even a security problem. But… all of that is just my own perception. I’m not sure what the evidence is for thinking the US is a gun culture in general. I think right now the percentage of Americans who own guns is 40%. If per capita gun ownership was closer to 20 than 100, I doubt we’d even think that 40% is that high. But the per capita’s high because of a smaller number of people in the sub-culture, not because every person who owns a gun owns 50 – 100 guns.
I think our culture is a bully culture, though. I doubt that it has anything to do with our historical roots. I think it has more to do with what our news is like in the US. That’s the conclusion Micheal Moore arrived at in Bowling for Columbine, and I think it’s still true. The news in the US whips everyone up into an angry frenzy. News in other countries isn’t like that.
3. Yes, I didn’t intend to gloss over the evidence about suicide. It’s difficult to tell, though, how much controlling guns could really accomplish against suicides. It’s still an important point to make, of course, but if we’re looking for arguments that will convince pro-gun folks, or even just average people who aren’t particularly pro-gun… I think most people are of the opinion, right or wrong, that a person who’s willing to shoot themselves would just kill themselves some other way if they didn’t have access to a gun.
4. If guns aren’t going to be confiscated, then, with so many guns in private possession in the US, I’m not sure what any kind of ban would accomplish. Though, honestly, if all guns were banned and all confiscated, I think people would just go into schools with bombs and the frequency of school attacks would stay the same or go up and the kill rate would stay the same or go up. But I think for many anti-gun people that is, a) not a guaranteed outcome, so bans and confiscations are worth trying, and b) even if it does happen, well then we address that problem, but at least we’ve taken away their easier method and we’re moving in the direction of making the attacks harder and harder to perpetrate. One can certainly disagree with such a position, but one cannot say it’s invalid.
But pro-gun types will not understand arguments to ban, say, the AR-15 but not other semi-auto rifles. Or arguments to ban semi-auto rifles, but not other semi-auto weapons. Or calls to ban semi-auto everything with no confiscation. Because there’s no reason to think any of those measures will stop or make less lethal school shootings. So their response will be, “They say they’re putting this ban in place to save kids, but since even they must see it won’t do that, then what’s really going on is they’re trying to sneakily, gradually, take all of our guns away!” Meanwhile, little or no conversation is actually had about how to keep kids or anyone else safe.
Ugh… it’s such a mess, really. I wish I had some clue as to what to do about it.
2. ” in media, guns are often portrayed as solutions to a number of problems.” That’s the sort of thing I meant by saying that the U.S. has a gun culture–not how many people own guns, but how guns are represented in the culture.
3. If people will dismiss evidence about suicide and just say that people would do it anyway, then really there’s no use talking about this at all. One can’t have a discussion that will influence anything if evidence is just dismissed. There are numerous studies that show that suicide deaths go up with gun availability. There are 2 main reasons: one is that a suicide attempt is an impulse decision. Anything that creates a delay between the decision and the ability to carry it out will lower the number of deaths. Guns are a faster means than many others. The other is that some other means of suicide are much more survivable than shooting yourself. I speculate about a third reason-but this is purely speculative. I know that suicidal people often feel cut off from the world and will commit acts of self-harm that fall short of suicide attempts like cutting themselves. People who self-harm are sometimes counselled to do something like hold an ice cube in their hand to get that feeling of having some bodily sensation–some interaction with the world–that falls short of cutting or burning themselves. I sometimes wonder if people who attempt suicide by some means like using a sharp implement wind up becoming more in touch with their body again and this keeps them from following through.
3. The idea that without guns people would just use other means to commit mass killings (like bombs) seems to be countered by the example of countries like Australia which enacted stricter gun laws (not a complete ban or confiscation, but restricted availability and gun buy-backs) and did not then have mass killings by bombs or other means.
Tony,
I’m also going to be in DC that weekend, though I’m there to perform the next day at the Cherry Blossom Festival. I’ve been wondering what to do about the March as I’m with my Mom and she isn’t seeing very well at the moment which makes me nervous about taking her out into a big crowd. But on the other hand, I really want to show support–so conflicted.
Jas,
What time are you performing at Cherry Blossom Festival?
3:15 Beth. At the Tidal Basin. My group is called Odaiko New England.
Beth, did you make it to the performance? Someone was waving at the back of the crowd and I wondered if it was you. I looked around after but didn’t see you.
Hi Jas,
No, I didn’t make it out to see cherry blossoms until mid-April; and even then it was COLD!
But it was a good trick?
Netflix Originals: Yeah a lot of the “originals” are just shows that Netflix is paying to bring to the US and aren’t actually a show they paid to make. The “Netflix Originals” branding is pretty misleading.
Frankenstein Chronicles: We watched the first episode but nothing about it felt compelling to me.
MEA: I’m not convinced I’d call it my favorite game in the series but I thought it was good. The interactions of the crew were excellently done and its one of the highlights of the game.
Suvi: Wow, I never noticed this either, but that doesn’t really surprise me. I’m terrible at voices and rarely interacted with Cait.
Gun Control: I’ve no particular love or interest in guns. In general, I approve of stricter gun control laws; but I also find the whole topic very difficult to talk about though I can’t really say why that is. Heck, this short (and completely unhelpful) comment took me mopre tries than I’m willing to admit in order to write up something I find to be vaguely coherent. *sigh*
Pizza is not a sandwich, but cold pizza is an acceptable breakfast food.
Also, I think Tony was trying to think of Okonomiyaki when he was talking about “Japanese pizza”. Though I’ve never heard it referred to as “Japanese pizza” and would object to that description; as it’s a savory pancake with a variety of toppings.
Heterosexual make great coffee: I’m not finding this as a title of any of your episodes but from Googling your site and looking at the comments; I’m guessing it was part of Episode 120: Super High Octane.
Red Sparrow: I’m torn on this one. I really like Jennifer Lawrence and I like espionage films but this movie looks like it’s going to hit all the wrong buttons for me.
A Wrinkle in Time: The trailers look pretty but it doesn’t look like a good movie to me.
Infinity War: The newest trailer looks bad ass.
Tomb Raider: I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I loved Tomb Raider (2013). Heck, my wife even loved watching me play it; so I’m pretty excited for this film.
Can’t reply to your message above, Jas, but I will say…
Yeah, I agree with your points re: suicide. It’s unfortunate that many will not find them compelling.
Re: the example of Australia… that reasoning only holds if a) the reasons for mass shootings in Australia are the same as the reasons here, and b) if there is a causal connection between the change in gun policy in Australia and the decrease in mass killings. As we all know, correlation doesn’t equal causation. And if assumption “a” is incorrect, then it’s more likely that assumption “b” is correct.
… sorry… more likely that assumption “b” is *incorrect* as well.
Basically, regardless of whether or not Australia benefited from their gun program (because their mass shooting rate might have gone down even had they not instituted the program… compared to the US, the rate wasn’t especially high to begin with), it doesn’t follow that this method will work in the US, especially if the causes in the US are different. Which, it seems abundantly clear to me, they very dramatically are.
In fact, as I understand it, except for the buy-back feature, the 1996 law passed in Australia was very similar to the partial semi-auto ban in the US in 1996. It’s hard to say if a voluntary buy-back feature in the US bill would have accomplished more than it did, but I seriously doubt it. (Still, the upcoming student march is demanding, among other things, something that sounds like a renewal of the US 1996 law… it might be worth it for them to demand that it include a buy-back program, so we can at least test if such a thing would work here.)
Over all, I tend to agree with people who think the US case is fairly unique as compared to other places. (Most such people are on the left of the US political spectrum, I’ll point out…) I don’t think we’re going to solve our shootings problem until we solve our violence problem in general, which is off the charts compared to other countries, guns or no guns.
I don’t think the problem is movies or TV or video games, either. Canada has the same as us in regard to those and yet their culture doesn’t seem as violent as ours. When it comes to our media, it’s the news programs that are the problem. We do need serious media reform in the US.
Ah, but I keep forgetting to mention…
One thing that mass-shooters often have in common is evidence in social media and other places that they were severely influenced by our culture’s toxic masculinity. Of course, popular TV, film, and video game entertainment does tend to reinforce that. Again, not sure why other countries exposed to the same content don’t have as much in the way of mass shootings and other violent crimes, but certainly other countries are infected with media reinforced toxic masculinity…
Interesting connection made here with race/gender. This article also describes an aspect of what I was trying to point to with the label “gun culture.” But perhaps shoud drop it as it seems too imprecise. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-are-white-men-stockpiling-guns/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sa-editorial-social&utm_content=&utm_term=health_blog_text_free
Yep, this article talks about that sub-culture I mentioned, and I think it’s fairly accurate in terms of isolating the particular issues the members of this sub-culture have (which I think also pertain to most mass shooters). It seems to me, though, that more digging needs to be done here… the core fears of this group must go deeper still…
Gender and race are handy enough scapegoats for these predominantly white, predominantly male “gun-nuts”. But scapegoats for what? Surely not just “their setbacks”, since, as the article pointed out, many people have similar setbacks and simply don’t reach out for scapegoats at all, much less race or gender scapegoats. A lack of purpose is noted, but so is religion as an alternative to becoming a gun-nut. Why don’t these white men become more religious instead? There’s a reason they’re taking this particular approach to make themselves feel better, and I don’t think we’ve figured out what that reason is.
One might simply say, “Their privilege is being threatened and this is their response,” and that would be accurate, but why *this* response, when most white men are not responding like this. One might say, “They watch NRA TV and it’s full of propaganda to whip up the passions of guys like this,” and that would also be accurate, but most white men, most people in general, look at NRA TV and think it’s insane, so why don’t *these* white men think that? I realize some may think we’re getting a little “chicken-and-the-egg” here, and of course there’s some non-linear dynamics at work, but I do think we start with the frightened/angry white men and the nut-ball NRA TV comes after. I’ve heard some of these white men tell their stories, and that seems to be the case. So what’s the core fear? What’s the core reason for it?
If we’re really interested in ending school shootings — and all mass shootings for that matter, and as many acts of violence in general as we possibly can — we need to figure out what this reason is and arrive at some method to address it. It’s a small group of people, but it’s a dangerous group of people, clearly.
And, yes, as the article suggests, while we’re trying to figure all of this out, we should take care not to lump this group into “American culture”, “all gun owners”, “all semi-auto gun owners”, “Republicans”, “Libertarians”, “the Right”, “2nd Amendment Supporters”, or “Doomsday Preppers”… as much as the Venn diagrams may overlap, this group we’re talking about is quite distinct and needs to be looked at very specifically. If we’re not specific, we just muddy the waters.
I think it’s important in this discussion to bring up another element of priviliege–economic/class privilege–that often seems to get left out of privilege discussions. I would bet that none of the white men who are amassing guns are CEOs of companies or Wall Street execs.
As is often the case, the most powerful manipulate those on the lower rungs to direct their fear/anger to those even further below, rather than risk having them look up.
Agreed.
I wonder if we’re not just dealing with a bell-curve kind of situation here. By that I mean, the culture generates a toxic narrative, and everyone is damaged by that narrative, but a few people in one tail of the bell successfully resist the damage, then most of the population who are in the middle of the bell fail, to some degree, to resist the damage but they somehow stand up to it, and then a few people in the opposite tail of the bell are completely broken by the damage. So given the toxic narrative, it’s simply statistically inevitable that all will be damaged, a few will successfully resist, most will fail-but-manage, and a few will be dangerously broken.
Calling out and effectively challenging toxic narratives is key to moving towards solutions, obviously. But it seems to me that only a handful of people are interested in doing that. I mean, it isn’t that difficult to find someone who’s criticizing a toxic narrative, but often they’re only replacing it with a toxic narrative of their own, so… net toxic narrative reduction = zero…
It’s hard to blame a person for not taking a balanced, nuanced position, though. The “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”-style absolutism is very strong in our present climate. If a person doesn’t pick one of only two rather myopic sides, they’re likely to be shut out of the conversation entirely.