Parkland School Shooting

thethe said:
Guns do not kill as many people as smoking. Its not even close.

Something had to be done about cigarette smoking. They pushed the culture that it was 'cool' to smoke for decades and preyed on children.

Everyone talks about the carnage guns causes and of course they do. But what about all the lives they save? How come this isn't discussed?
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Actually deaths are an incomplete accounting. In the case of smoking, the cost to society includes the extra medical care required by smokers (which is subsidized by non-smokers). In the case of guns, it includes the additional spending on police, security at schools and elsewhere, etc that is required. The social cost from both are enormous. Not to mention the "psychic costs" which are not to be dismissed.
 
Death is an easily quantifiable metric that shows how the two issues are not comparable at all. How many lives does smoking save?
 
thethe said:
Death is an easily quantifiable metric that shows how the two issues are not comparable at all. How many lives does smoking save?
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I was checking. It seems that death from smoking is about 15 times death by guns annually. But for both there is much more. In the case of guns there are more injuries than deaths each year. I suspect for smoking there is as much ill health as death. But I think we are missing the point if we focus on which one causes more societal harm. To do something about one does not mean that serious efforts should not be made about the other.

There is one wrinkle (unfortunately there is a double entendre buried there) worth thinking about. People who die from smoking are generally older than people who die from guns. That evens things out a bit if you are thinking of years of life lost.
 
nsacpi said:
I was checking. It seems that death from smoking is about 15 times death by guns annually. But for both there is much more. In the case of guns there are more injuries than deaths each year. I suspect for smoking there is as much ill health as death. But I think we are missing the point if we focus on which one causes more societal harm. To do something about one does not mean that serious efforts should not be made about the other.
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There is no way to put reforms in place for smoking unless you jack up the rates. Increasing prices for guns does not solve school shootings. It's a move to say hey we did something even though it doesn't actually correct what needs to be corrected.
 
thethe said:
There is no way to put reforms in place for smoking unless you jack up the rates. Increasing prices for guns does not solve school shootings. It's a move to say hey we did something even though it doesn't actually correct what needs to be corrected.
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The proposal I made will not "solve" anything. I do think it would reduce gun deaths.
 
Every person who lights up a cigarette is harming themselves and everyone around them. Only one out of several thousand people who use a gun will cause any harm to anyone. The problem, you see, is that cigarettes are inherently harmful, and guns are not.
 
Jaw said:
Every person who lights up a cigarette is harming themselves and everyone around them. Only one out of several thousand people who use a gun will cause any harm to anyone. The problem, you see, is that cigarettes are inherently harmful, and guns are not.
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The comparison is absurd.
 
BedellBrave said:
What have we each been wrong about when it comes to this argument? I know we all make our usual arguments. This time, is there something maybe you are a little less certain about at least? Something you've actually been wrong about in how you've typically argued?
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Do any of us have to be wrong? One side wants to restrict guns to reduce danger, I think it's incontrovertible that path would work. The other side wants to prevent punishing the many for the failings of the few, also an obvious fact.

I wonder why we can't focus more on enforcing the restrictions we already have. The FBI has access to the gun background check system. The FBI was alerted to this guy being a threat. The local law enforcement agencies were alerted many, many times. Could we not enact some measure to seize weapons from obviously mentally ill or dangerous people? The laa would need to be well written and vetted, there sould need to be some type of appeal process to where doctors or someone else who is antigun couldn't declare you mentally ill just because you have a gun, but it seems workable. The biggest problem would be getting the federal law enforcement to buy in and actually do their part, as they seem to consistently be the weakest link in the chain.
 
Jaw said:
Do any of us have to be wrong? One side wants to restrict guns to reduce danger, I think it's incontrovertible that path would work. The other side wants to prevent punishing the many for the failings of the few, also an obvious fact.
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It's "the many" that want assault weapons banned from regular citizens. I'm fine with having a few on hand at gun ranges to be fired by qualified people under strick supervision and regulation.
 
Jaw said:
Every person who lights up a cigarette is harming themselves and everyone around them. Only one out of several thousand people who use a gun will cause any harm to anyone. The problem, you see, is that cigarettes are inherently harmful, and guns are not.
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I'm not really sure I can go along with that. An unsmoked cigarette is as harmless as an unfired gun. Every time a gun is handled, there is a small but significant (given the stakes) chance that it will harm someone. It's a messy comparison, but "inherently harmless" is a sticking point. My cigarette can kill me, and, if used regularly in the presence of others, my co-habitants over time. My gun can kill me, my cohabitants, my neighbors, classmates, and random strangers. It takes either human intent or negligence for this to happen, but it's all too easy.

A nuclear-tipped ICBM is also inherently harmless, right? If it's properly handled, it'll never hurt a fly.
 
And I am having a really hard time following thethe's logic about the efficacy of gun control methods. Apply those same standards to the threat of terrorism and tell me if you think security methods in that arena are worth it. They won't end the problem and they cost money, time, and liberty, so why bother?
 
Julio3000 said:
I'm not really sure I can go along with that. An unsmoked cigarette is as harmless as an unfired gun. Every time a gun is handled, there is a small but significant (given the stakes) chance that it will harm someone. It's a messy comparison, but "inherently harmless" is a sticking point. My cigarette can kill me, and, if used regularly in the presence of others, my co-habitants over time. My gun can kill me, my cohabitants, my neighbors, classmates, and random strangers. It takes either human intent or negligence for this to happen, but it's all too easy.

A nuclear-tipped ICBM is also inherently harmless, right? If it's properly handled, it'll never hurt a fly.
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Also I wasn't saying guns and cigarettes are the same. Just that both are a social bad in the sense that society bears costs that are not incurred by the people buying those products. There is a well-developed literature on how taxation can be used to remedy social bads. The social costs of smoking and guns are both enormous and go well beyond the premature deaths caused by them.
 
nsacpi said:
Also I wasn't saying guns and cigarettes are the same. Just that both are a social bad in the sense that society bears costs that are not incurred by the people buying those products. There is a well-developed literature on how taxation can be used to remedy social bads. The social costs of smoking and guns are both enormous and go well beyond the premature deaths caused by them.
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Yeah, and that kind of socialized externality is where government arguably can and should use its price-signaling abilities.
 
This leads to another interesting question. What's the social good of an underregulated gun market?
 
Julio3000 said:
Yeah, and that kind of socialized externality is where government arguably can and should use its price-signaling abilities.
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At a minimum the tax should be set to compensate family members for premature loss of life. But as I've noted the social costs go well beyond the premature loss of life. In addition to premature death, there are injuries and the costs society bears in treating those injuries. In some cases these injuries lead to long-term disability. Also, society has to spend more on policing, security, etc as a result of the use of these products. And yes the psychic costs are quite high, especially for the many law-abiding citizens who unfortunately find themselves living in neighborhoods with high rates of gun crimes.
 
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