No.
Me: If people all around me are armed all the time, there is *some* larger-than-zero probability that someone will go nuts and start shooting.
Addison: This is after I told you that *I* don't have that fear. You just said "that's impossible [you're lying]".
Nope -- I'm saying, if *anything* like that, "that's irrational [you're stupid]".
Because, if you "don't have that fear", then you ARE being irrational: The probability -- however vanishingly low -- *does* exist.
I said I don't have that fear, that the odds are so low as to not be worth worrying about.
You said that I was wrong, of course I worried about it. I don't know how else to interpret that.
The possibility exists, yes.
Are you worried that someone will bury you with a snowplow? Put poison in your vodka? maybe spike your chewing tobacco? What about that someone in your workplace will pull a gun in the next week and shoot you?
You *must* be, because those *are* possibilities, right?
That's the argument you've presented. If its possible, you must worry about it, or else be irrational.
Its irrational to worry (more) with probabilities of a LOWER ORDER of things that you accept on a daily basis, wouldn't you say?
I would. So no, I don't worry when I'm in a gunstore. I'm safer in there than outside. The likelyhood is LESS. So I worry less (ie, none)
Don't preted to be so fucking stupid, please. The likelyhood of someone going nuts AND START SHOOTING is ABSOLUTELY changed by whether they've got a gun or not.
Yes, and I said as much. You've created a false comparision. I worry about people going nuts. Secondarily, I worry with what they're packing.
Additionally - if they *DO* go nuts and "start shooting", and more than 1 person SHOOTS BACK, who wins?
But *if* they do, *before* they're "most likely VERY quickly dispatched", someone else is pretty damn likely to get hurt or killed.
And are you prepared to SWEAR that it has NEVER, EVER, happened? And that it *will* NEVER, EVER, happen (again?)?
Perhaps. But the odds are that LESS PEOPLE will be hurt/killed in that situation, than in a situation where there is just ONE CRAZY PERSON with HOMICIDE.
Additionally, and I can't find a link to it online, there was a incident of workplace violence last year I heard about. Guy got fired, few days later walks into the office carrying some number of weapons. Yells "I"m going to kill all you &*#@*". Someone was chatting with the receptionist. He pulled his CCW .45 and shot once.
Now, how many people would have been hurt/killed without that? What if he'd walked in tossing Molotov Cocktails? Fireworks with nails around 'em? pipe bombs?
The gun isn't the problem, the gun in the hands of the nut is, and more specifically, the *nut* is the problem.
No? Didn't think so... The probability *is* greater than zero.
Yes. But so's the probability that the sun will Nova in the next 60 seconds. So's the probability that I'll have a heart attack this week. So's the probability that a metorite will hit me in the head. They're *SO CLOSE* to zero that I consider them zero, and spend my time worrying about MORE LIKELY probabilities.
But I grant you, the probability is greater than zero.
What you're not granting me is your scenario is leaving a lot out.
And removing guns makes it one *less* kind of weapons out there.
At one point, I could reccall in debating, what you call it when someone says something factual, that's wrong. That was too many years ago. But this is the sort of thing.
Sure. And if you get rid of the guns, the likelihood of shootings disappears, you're absolutely right.
But the likelihood of *crime, assault, and violence* goes UP. And my ability to stop it also disappears. Well, diminished to near zero.
So if you've got a maniac running through a schoolyard with a ninja sword, or toward you, and no guns, how are you proposing to stop him?
There's NO WAY IN HELL you're going to logically convince me that the likelihood of getting hurt by a gun is no bigger when there ARE guns around, than when there AREN'T.
Nope. I didn't say that. I said the probability was so low it didnt' concern me.
Because there are guns out there. Lots of them. Billions of them. And criminals have 'em. You are ignoring this.
There are lots of other weapons out there. You ignore that.
You're worried about the low-order probability stuff, instead of the much more likely stuff. *THAT*'s irrational.
Sure, if you could get rid of guns, nobody would be shot. You're entirely right, but you can't, you won't, (the probablity is infintemsmal) and its silly to make your stand on a "fact" that's irrelevant.
You've created a false situation. I'm talking about the real world.
Guns exist. Crazy people exist, whethere there are guns or not. Criminals exist, guns or not.
The likelihood of me encountering someone crazy or criminal, and suffering at their hands GOES UP without me ahving a weapon. That's reality.
I don't care what you want to think, I'm not going into your imagined situation and telling you you're wrong. Go back and read what I said.
In situations where the populace is armed, I feel safer, because these false situations don't happen.
In short, its not me being irrational.
But to continue this, when you're being Brycian, attempting (and almost succeeding) to redefine the "debate" into "your terms" isn't worth it. (Go back and look at how you've progressed from reality to nitpicking on "close to zero", etc).
Hang loose, and keep the powder dry, bro.
Addison
