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ZEN_OF_DEATH

                                        February  6, 2013
                                   Rev: May      12, 2023  (minor)

The recent barrage of anti-gun sentiment
strikes me in an interesting way... I
find that I don't care much about the
issue.
   
While I know the pro-gun side well enough             GUNS
that I can usually tell when the anti-gun    
people are being stupid, at the same time    
I don't have any strong objection to most    
of the New Legislation you hear being    
talked about.  The stuff that's not going      ASSAULT_ON_WEAPONS
to be totally ineffective does sound like    
it's just a handful of bandaids... but if    
we must Do Something, bandaids aren't so    
bad.  It's not like our usual specialty: 
panic-induced counter-productive moves.      

     
     So, I can hang back,
     watching people blather
     and rage, and am
     occasionally pleasantly       GUNSHOT_BANDAIDS
     surprised by some
     comments that make sense.        I could use this issue as a case study
                                      of the present state of the art in
     None of which means I            public decision-making-- because I'm
     can't still learn                not particularly engaged with it, I can
     anything about it from           talk about it without blathering and
     the discussion: for one          raging myself.  The trouble is that I'm
     thing, the problem sounds        also fairly bored with it all.
     bigger than I thought it
     was.  My first thought                                (And anyway, we've
     was that this was a case                              all moved on to the
     where a handful of                                    sequester circus...
     dramatic incidents are                                nothing may happen
     getting people hyped up                               on the gun front at
     about next to nothing.                                all.  Which I guess
                                                           is a significant
     But 30,000 annual US                                  result, itself.)
     gun deaths is a lot...   Though you do realize
                              that violent crime is
    Even after you            down, right? It's been
    allow that two            declining in the US since
    thirds of those           the 90s, at least...
    are suicides,
    which arguably
    should be thought    My take is that gun suicides are pretty
    of separately.       serious about it (you don't use a gun if
                         you're hoping you'll be interrupted).

                                                    The hope is that without
    The 11k or so of violent gun                    easy access to guns,
    deaths probably also needs to be                some gun suicides might
    subdivided: few of them are the                 get though their dark
    "spree killings" that everyone's                nights alive, and find
    so fascinated by, and if those                  they can keep going.
    are your main mental model,
    you're going to fall into the                   My impression, my
    trap of guarding against "movie                 guess, is that it's not
    plot threats" yourself...                       that many of them...
                                                    but it would be nice if
             ADDRESS_THE_PROBLEM                    we could do a little
                                                    more than guess.

                                                    DATA_GUN



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