12-08-2015, 03:31 PM
The narrator in that video is very effective, Gunnar. Interesting watch/listen.
I think that by now anyone who's been actively following or participating in this thread already knows that having the largest per-capita gun ownership rate in the world does not make the U.S. the country with the highest per-capita murder rate.
Instead, the U.S. is both the highest per-capita in terms of gun ownership worldwide and the highest per-capita in terms of gun homicides among the most developed countries.
His bit about Plano, Texas was intellectually very weak. He says that it is a gun nut capital and happens to have the lowest per-capita homicide rate in the country. So, according to his argument, if the rest of the U.S. was like Plano, Texas, the U.S. would be near the bottom (instead of the middle) in per-capita homicides for all countries worldwide.
That's really irrelevant since the whole of the U.S. is, of course, not Plano, Texas. But it's also a flawed argument in that he would need to compare Plano, Texas with the lowest homicide per-capita city in every other country for his comparison/contention to be valid on any level.
Anyway, I gather the message he wanted viewers to take away is "more guns = less murders". That is sometimes true and sometimes not. But, I agree with his direct statement that the hands holding the guns are the biggest factors when it comes to gun violence. That's where the bulk of gun control legislation should be focused, in my opinion.
I think that by now anyone who's been actively following or participating in this thread already knows that having the largest per-capita gun ownership rate in the world does not make the U.S. the country with the highest per-capita murder rate.
Instead, the U.S. is both the highest per-capita in terms of gun ownership worldwide and the highest per-capita in terms of gun homicides among the most developed countries.
His bit about Plano, Texas was intellectually very weak. He says that it is a gun nut capital and happens to have the lowest per-capita homicide rate in the country. So, according to his argument, if the rest of the U.S. was like Plano, Texas, the U.S. would be near the bottom (instead of the middle) in per-capita homicides for all countries worldwide.
That's really irrelevant since the whole of the U.S. is, of course, not Plano, Texas. But it's also a flawed argument in that he would need to compare Plano, Texas with the lowest homicide per-capita city in every other country for his comparison/contention to be valid on any level.
Anyway, I gather the message he wanted viewers to take away is "more guns = less murders". That is sometimes true and sometimes not. But, I agree with his direct statement that the hands holding the guns are the biggest factors when it comes to gun violence. That's where the bulk of gun control legislation should be focused, in my opinion.