what distinguishes Car Control from Gun Control?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Cars are dangerous, yes. But that's not a reason to not have gun control.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

To attempt to defuse things. let me get back to the reason I split those posts off.  This thread was about a stabbing incident.  Some discussion of whether having guns on campus in the possession of additional responsible adults would have had an effect on that particular incident was to be expected.  So removing all posts touching upon gun control in any degree was something I thought excessive.  However, a wide ranging discussion of the general merits of gun control and whether other forms of control are comparable to gun control has nothing to do with the stabbing incident itself, and so in an attempt to be somewhat respectful of that, since there were a large number of related posts that had derailed all discussion of this incident, I split them off so that this thread could get back to that incident, if people were still interested in that.  Now I can understand you perhaps being annoyed with my choice of title for the split thread.  But the central theme of the posts I moved to that thread were about whether gun control was comparable to car control, and I wanted to give it something more distinctive than "Discussion about Guns after Latest Violent Incident" since that unfortunately is something we've had before and will have again.  Everytime we have an incident like this, regardless of whether guns were involved or not, we have a discussion about guns.  It's inevitable, and I'm resigned to that.  I'm not resigned to having it dominate the thread about such incidents, especially when the incident did not involve guns.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

While I did try to defuse things with my last post, I think there are some things I need to directly address from your last post.

You took advantage of Jedi's point to go off on yet another one of your pedantic nitpicking episodes that is a principal reason [Inks] has come to be an all-purpose replacement for profanity here on the Forum.

No, MJ made an analogy to cars, and bedstuy unfairly attacked it, so I attempted to debunk that attack by pointing out that bedstuy's reasons for differentiating guns and cars was, at its heart, arbitrary, and thus the attack on MJ's post invalid.  Furthermore, the reason that "[Inks]" has become a replacement for profanity has nothing to do with my "pedantic nitpicking", but the fact that I don't tolerate profanity on my boards; however, it is ironic that you of all people would attack me on this post, because of all of the mods, you are the only one who has taken a stricter stance on profanity and vulgarity than I have.

I said "a principal reason", not "the only reason".  Obviously, your efforts to keep the vulgarity here within some level of decorum affected the choice of how people chose to respond.

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I don't infract people for publicly challenging moderator decisions.  You can disagree with my actions, but don't blatantly lie about what I do.  That's a pretty nasty thing to do, and I would expect better character out of our moderators.
[/quote]
Since you say you haven't and wouldn't, I'll take you at your word, tho I will say, that I was under the impression you favored doing so and that the main reason you didn't was that most such discussions take place a board you aren't a mod of.  You definitely come across as preferring that moderator actions not be publicly debated.  You clarified that in your last post that your policy is to not discuss infractions in public, yet I will point out that those are the vast majority of the actions we take as individual mods.

[Smash255]

I think we should have safety measures for cars, airplanes and guns that are warranted in each case.  There are a number of factors you would consider in that calculation including the number of people killed by that weapon or vehicle.  It ends up being a cost-benefit analysis between the cost of the safety measure and the reduced risk of harm.  

What I take issue with is the argument that we need to regulate everything with a potential to kill in the same manner.  We don't heavily regulate knives and knives kill people, therefore we shouldn't regulate guns.  That's just silly.  By that logic, we don't regulate fists and you can punch someone to death, therefore, nuclear weapons should be legal for private citizens.

But we don't regulate cars at all for their owners' propensity to commit a violent act with their cars.

The issue here is not, "We don't heavily regulate __X__, so we shouldn't regulate guns."  The issue should be, "Why should we regulate guns?"  Where is the logic in the regulation of guns?  There has to be a reason for the regulation that starts somewhere broad and works its way into the narrow universe of guns.  If you don't do that, your regulations are admittedly arbitrary.

So what is the rationale for regulating guns, and what is your logic chain that shows that your proposed regulation isn't arbitrary?

Hmm, perhaps because the PURPOSE of a gun is to kill........

[DrScholl]

You need a license to operate a car and insurance, which adds a level of responsibility. Without those requirements, you'd have far more accidents. On the other hand, no testing, license or insurance is required for obtaining a gun, which is easier to use in committing a crime than a car is.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

While I did try to defuse things with my last post, I think there are some things I need to directly address from your last post.

You took advantage of Jedi's point to go off on yet another one of your pedantic nitpicking episodes that is a principal reason [Inks] has come to be an all-purpose replacement for profanity here on the Forum.

No, MJ made an analogy to cars, and bedstuy unfairly attacked it, so I attempted to debunk that attack by pointing out that bedstuy's reasons for differentiating guns and cars was, at its heart, arbitrary, and thus the attack on MJ's post invalid.  Furthermore, the reason that "[Inks]" has become a replacement for profanity has nothing to do with my "pedantic nitpicking", but the fact that I don't tolerate profanity on my boards; however, it is ironic that you of all people would attack me on this post, because of all of the mods, you are the only one who has taken a stricter stance on profanity and vulgarity than I have.

I said "a principal reason", not "the only reason".  Obviously, your efforts to keep the vulgarity here within some level of decorum affected the choice of how people chose to respond.

To my knowledge, the only reason people use "[Inks]" as a substitute for swear words is because I was known for my anti-profanity stance as a mod; I am unaware that my conduct during debates had anything to do with that.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I don't infract people for publicly challenging moderator decisions.  You can disagree with my actions, but don't blatantly lie about what I do.  That's a pretty nasty thing to do, and I would expect better character out of our moderators.
[/quote]
Since you say you haven't and wouldn't, I'll take you at your word, tho I will say, that I was under the impression you favored doing so and that the main reason you didn't was that most such discussions take place a board you aren't a mod of.  You definitely come across as preferring that moderator actions not be publicly debated.  You clarified that in your last post that your policy is to not discuss infractions in public, yet I will point out that those are the vast majority of the actions we take as individual mods.
[/quote]
I understand that the vast majority of actions we take is infractions, but if you're going to modify/delete something, it makes no sense to then publicly discuss the thing you just modified or deleted, because you have to then publicly post about things that you've already decided shouldn't be publicly visible.

When it comes to other moderator actions, I've encouraged public debate (e.g. decisions to ban and general criticisms of mod actions and locking of threads).

But no, I have never infracted someone for publicly challenging moderator decisions.  I may have (and likely have) infracted posts where someone publicly challenged a moderator decision, but the reason for that was not the public challenge, but rather that there was an underlying offense that warranted an infraction regardless of the point the poster was making (for example, if someone made a blatant personal attack or posted a PM during such a public challenge).

Again, had you simply split the threads, I would've PMed you, but when you started trolling by making the title "A discussion about car control", when you knew that that was not the point of discussion, you invited the public criticism by publicly announcing your action.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I think we should have safety measures for cars, airplanes and guns that are warranted in each case.  There are a number of factors you would consider in that calculation including the number of people killed by that weapon or vehicle.  It ends up being a cost-benefit analysis between the cost of the safety measure and the reduced risk of harm.  

What I take issue with is the argument that we need to regulate everything with a potential to kill in the same manner.  We don't heavily regulate knives and knives kill people, therefore we shouldn't regulate guns.  That's just silly.  By that logic, we don't regulate fists and you can punch someone to death, therefore, nuclear weapons should be legal for private citizens.

But we don't regulate cars at all for their owners' propensity to commit a violent act with their cars.

The issue here is not, "We don't heavily regulate __X__, so we shouldn't regulate guns."  The issue should be, "Why should we regulate guns?"  Where is the logic in the regulation of guns?  There has to be a reason for the regulation that starts somewhere broad and works its way into the narrow universe of guns.  If you don't do that, your regulations are admittedly arbitrary.

So what is the rationale for regulating guns, and what is your logic chain that shows that your proposed regulation isn't arbitrary?

Hmm, perhaps because the PURPOSE of a gun is to kill........

So are swords, but we don't regulate them, and they are inherently dangerous and designed to kill.  So that can't be the basis for why we have gun regulation.  There has to be something more than just being inherently dangerous with the purpose of design to kill.  You're still working backwards from your conclusion and attempting to justify it.

You need a license to operate a car and insurance, which adds a level of responsibility. Without those requirements, you'd have far more accidents. On the other hand, no testing, license or insurance is required for obtaining a gun, which is easier to use in committing a crime than a car is.

I support requiring a license and background checks for guns.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Again, had you simply split the threads, I would've PMed you, but when you started trolling by making the title "A discussion about car control", when you knew that that was not the point of discussion, you invited the public criticism by publicly announcing your action.

I'll admit to trying to be humorous about an umpteenth thread related to gun control.  I'm sorry my attempt at humor fell flat, but I won't apologize for it.  I will apologize for another comment I made, as it had no bearing on this, and I've removed it from this thread.  (Indeed, on reflection, I'd have infracted myself for it, but when I went to report my own post, the software said, "You can't report your own post to the moderator, that doesn't make sense!")

[bedstuy]

I think we should have safety measures for cars, airplanes and guns that are warranted in each case.  There are a number of factors you would consider in that calculation including the number of people killed by that weapon or vehicle.  It ends up being a cost-benefit analysis between the cost of the safety measure and the reduced risk of harm.  

What I take issue with is the argument that we need to regulate everything with a potential to kill in the same manner.  We don't heavily regulate knives and knives kill people, therefore we shouldn't regulate guns.  That's just silly.  By that logic, we don't regulate fists and you can punch someone to death, therefore, nuclear weapons should be legal for private citizens.

But we don't regulate cars at all for their owners' propensity to commit a violent act with their cars.

The issue here is not, "We don't heavily regulate __X__, so we shouldn't regulate guns."  The issue should be, "Why should we regulate guns?"  Where is the logic in the regulation of guns?  There has to be a reason for the regulation that starts somewhere broad and works its way into the narrow universe of guns.  If you don't do that, your regulations are admittedly arbitrary.

So what is the rationale for regulating guns, and what is your logic chain that shows that your proposed regulation isn't arbitrary?

Hmm, perhaps because the PURPOSE of a gun is to kill........

So are swords, but we don't regulate them, and they are inherently dangerous and designed to kill.  So that can't be the basis for why we have gun regulation.  There has to be something more than just being inherently dangerous with the purpose of design to kill.  You're still working backwards from your conclusion and attempting to justify it.

Am I on the hook for what other people said? 

I've answered your point a few times, but you're ignoring what I say and you keep insisting that I need to write a treatise on government to have an opinion on some fairly obvious question about the danger of cars as weapons.   

[Smash255]

I think we should have safety measures for cars, airplanes and guns that are warranted in each case.  There are a number of factors you would consider in that calculation including the number of people killed by that weapon or vehicle.  It ends up being a cost-benefit analysis between the cost of the safety measure and the reduced risk of harm.  

What I take issue with is the argument that we need to regulate everything with a potential to kill in the same manner.  We don't heavily regulate knives and knives kill people, therefore we shouldn't regulate guns.  That's just silly.  By that logic, we don't regulate fists and you can punch someone to death, therefore, nuclear weapons should be legal for private citizens.

But we don't regulate cars at all for their owners' propensity to commit a violent act with their cars.

The issue here is not, "We don't heavily regulate __X__, so we shouldn't regulate guns."  The issue should be, "Why should we regulate guns?"  Where is the logic in the regulation of guns?  There has to be a reason for the regulation that starts somewhere broad and works its way into the narrow universe of guns.  If you don't do that, your regulations are admittedly arbitrary.

So what is the rationale for regulating guns, and what is your logic chain that shows that your proposed regulation isn't arbitrary?

Hmm, perhaps because the PURPOSE of a gun is to kill........

So are swords, but we don't regulate them, and they are inherently dangerous and designed to kill.  So that can't be the basis for why we have gun regulation.  There has to be something more than just being inherently dangerous with the purpose of design to kill.  You're still working backwards from your conclusion and attempting to justify it.

How many swords are actually used to kill someone?  How many guns are used to kill someone?   FTR, I'm not saying we should ban guns, but they need to be more regulated.  To make a comparison between something designed to kill and something not designed to kill is asinine.  To make a comparison between something that very rarely used to kill to something that is used to kill quite often is asinine.