What happens when there are too many guns in America

[UsualName]

Firstly, I was careful (knowing how you'd ask me in advance) to clarify "in my opinion" to keep it subjective. Secondly, if I had to, I'd start with stuff like "children born out of wedlock" and "fatherless families" and stuff like that, you know - the destruction of the so-called "nuclear family". Divorces, alimony, and the like.

https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-we-ended-up-with-40-percent-of-children-born-out-of-wedlock

So you think single parents are bad parents. Ok. By what metric are you measuring this though?

Remember this stemmed from you assigning blame for a shooting to bad parenting then that grew to you saying bad parents are more common today than 20 years ago.

In the chart you provided between 1980 and 2000 had one of the highest rates of violent crime in American history but less kids were born out of wedlock. Almost everything was worse then, teen pregnancy, drug use, violence, drop out rates, etc.

Things did begin to turnaround in the early 2000s and we are currently living in a low crime, high educational attainment era. Yes, I know scores fell off and gun violence is up through Covid, but let’s see if that sticks or if we revert to the mean.

 

[Tsing Tao]

So you think single parents are bad parents. Ok. By what metric are you measuring this though?

I think single parents by themselves are a worse environment than having both parents in the family. Yes. I'd love to hear your reasoning why you believe it is better or the same with one less parent.

Remember this stemmed from you assigning blame for a shooting to bad parenting then that grew to you saying bad parents are more common today than 20 years ago.

Which I also qualified with "in my opinion". I am entitled to my own opinions.

In the chart you provided between 1980 and 2000 had one of the highest rates of violent crime in American history but less kids were born out of wedlock. Almost everything was worse then, teen pregnancy, drug use, violence, drop out rates, etc.

Things did begin to turnaround in the early 2000s and we are currently living in a low crime, high educational attainment era. Yes, I know scores fell off and gun violence is up through Covid, but let’s see if that sticks or if we revert to the mean.

If only it were only a two variable equation. You asked me to support my opinion that parenting is worse than it has been, not to unilaterally link crime to bad parenting. I believe it is one of the variables, not all of them. In the case you posted, it is certainly at the forefront.

 

[Cuddles]

So you think single parents are bad parents. Ok. By what metric are you measuring this though?

Remember this stemmed from you assigning blame for a shooting to bad parenting then that grew to you saying bad parents are more common today than 20 years ago.

In the chart you provided between 1980 and 2000 had one of the highest rates of violent crime in American history but less kids were born out of wedlock. Almost everything was worse then, teen pregnancy, drug use, violence, drop out rates, etc.

Things did begin to turnaround in the early 2000s and we are currently living in a low crime, high educational attainment era. Yes, I know scores fell off and gun violence is up through Covid, but let’s see if that sticks or if we revert to the mean.

?? single parent households must be working:

 

[gwb-trading]

If you can't permanently take away a convicted felon's right to vote then you can't take away their right to possess a firearm.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1674168003250860033

 

[Cuddles]

If you can't permanently take away a convicted felon's right to vote then you can't take away their right to possess a firearm.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1674168003250860033

now rollback every convict disenfranchisement laws. Start w/Florida.

 

[UsualName]

I think single parents by themselves are a worse environment than having both parents in the family. Yes. I'd love to hear your reasoning why you believe it is better or the same with one less parent.



Which I also qualified with "in my opinion". I am entitled to my own opinions.



If only it were only a two variable equation. You asked me to support my opinion that parenting is worse than it has been, not to unilaterally link crime to bad parenting. I believe it is one of the variables, not all of them. In the case you posted, it is certainly at the forefront.

Then why not have 3 and 4 parents? No. I’m just kidding. Obviously, it is best for a child to be raised with both of their biological parents, married and in the same household and that household is free of drugs, alcohol, guns, nicotine, violence, video games, movies, stairs, dairy, etc.

Oh we can keep moving the goal posts. Forget two variables let’s make it 14 variables. Obviously, kids are doing much better today by the standard measurements of well being regardless of whether or not you’ve become the old guy shaking his fist on his front lawn yelling at kids about how back in your day you used drink hot water out of a garden hose.

 

[Tsing Tao]

Then why not have 3 and 4 parents? No. I’m just kidding. Obviously, it is best for a child to be raised with both of their biological parents, married and in the same household and that household is free of drugs, alcohol, guns, nicotine, violence, video games, movies, stairs, dairy, etc.

Oh we can keep moving the goal posts. Forget two variables let’s make it 14 variables. Obviously, kids are doing much better today by the standard measurements of well being regardless of whether or not you’ve become the old guy shaking his fist on his front lawn yelling at kids about how back in your day you used drink hot water out of a garden hose.

Its hard to tell where your intelligent thought starts and your snark ends. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on your first paragraph above being sincere. If it isn't, then you're more a fruit loop than I had ever thought. But lets go with sincerity.

On the second, no one's moving any goal posts. My original response that bad parenting was the sole cause of a 2 year old being able to find, pick up and fire an accessible loaded weapon to kill the mom remains true. That is bad parenting.

We then got into a discussion about bad parenting being more common today than yesteryear, which you asked me to substantiate, despite me saying "in my opinion". You asked me for what metrics allowed me to come to that conclusion, and I shared my thoughts regarding the degradation of the nuclear family unit.

You then tried to correlate unilaterally the decline of the family unit to a chart on violence. That wasn't me. And then, when you pointed out that the two weren't correlated, you declared victory on the discussion. At that point I pointed out that violence is more complicated, and contains a good amount of other variables - one of which is exactly what you've been saying all along which is the access to firearms. And now you're making fun of my argument that there's more than one variable.

Sometimes I think you just like to argue for the sake of arguing.

 

[UsualName]

Its hard to tell where your intelligent thought starts and your snark ends. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on your first paragraph above being sincere. If it isn't, then you're more a fruit loop than I had ever thought. But lets go with sincerity.

On the second, no one's moving any goal posts. My original response that bad parenting was the sole cause of a 2 year old being able to find, pick up and fire an accessible loaded weapon to kill the mom remains true. That is bad parenting.

We then got into a discussion about bad parenting being more common today than yesteryear, which you asked me to substantiate, despite me saying "in my opinion". You asked me for what metrics allowed me to come to that conclusion, and I shared my thoughts regarding the degradation of the nuclear family unit.

You then tried to correlate unilaterally the decline of the family unit to a chart on violence. That wasn't me. And then, when you pointed out that the two weren't correlated, you declared victory on the discussion. At that point I pointed out that violence is more complicated, and contains a good amount of other variables - one of which is exactly what you've been saying all along which is the access to firearms. And now you're making fun of my argument that there's more than one variable.

Sometimes I think you just like to argue for the sake of arguing.

Well let just say that I actually don’t think leaving a loaded gun out is bad parenting, I think it’s bad gun owning. Under no circumstances should you leave a loaded gun out in the open, unattended.

It’s hard to parent any two-year old because cognitively they’re just not aware enough yet to understand danger. Almost anything is dangerous to a two year old but few things are dangerous to an adult in the hands of a two-year old.

My point remains that Americans are not some outlier of mental health and poor parenting. Our outlier is in the amount of guns in this country. There’s guns everywhere and with that the probability of gun violence will increase and continue to increase.

And, I keep seeing this argument that the latest generations are degenerate whether in the workplace, as parents or by and large as citizens and I got to say that it simply does not show up in the data. This is with the concession that with the pandemic there were impacts on many aspects of life that included things like drug use, education, life expectancy, violent crime.

 

[Tsing Tao]

Well let just say that I actually don’t think leaving a loaded gun out is bad parenting, I think it’s bad gun owning. Under no circumstances should you leave a loaded gun out in the open, unattended.

So you think its good parenting?

It’s hard to parent any two-year old because cognitively they’re just not aware enough yet to understand danger. Almost anything is dangerous to a two year old but few things are dangerous to an adult in the hands of a two-year old.

Please. A good parent doesn't leave a loaded gun out for a two year old to get access to no matter what. And there is literally no argument a sane person can make otherwise.

My point remains that Americans are not some outlier of mental health and poor parenting. Our outlier is in the amount of guns in this country. There’s guns everywhere and with that the probability of gun violence will increase and continue to increase.

And, I keep seeing this argument that the latest generations are degenerate whether in the workplace, as parents or by and large as citizens and I got to say that it simply does not show up in the data. This is with the concession that with the pandemic there were impacts on many aspects of life that included things like drug use, education, life expectancy, violent crime.

I agree with you that gun availability is part of the problem. Its one of the variables, and I've said many times on this very forum (I can provide you the posts if you don't believe me) that if you somehow were able to magically cast a spell and remove all the bad guns and criminals who use them I'd gladly surrender mine to you. But until you can provide a solution to that equation, I'm not going to agree.

In your last paragraph, you're bringing up multiple variables that cause poor parenting and higher crime, etc. So I'm not about to disagree. They certainly don't make things better. But I do believe that Americans are experiencing a more rapid decline of the family unit than elsewhere in the world. Please note the word "believe". This is my opinion.

 

[UsualName]

So you think its good parenting?



Please. A good parent doesn't leave a loaded gun out for a two year old to get access to no matter what. And there is literally no argument a sane person can make otherwise.



I agree with you that gun availability is part of the problem. Its one of the variables, and I've said many times on this very forum (I can provide you the posts if you don't believe me) that if you somehow were able to magically cast a spell and remove all the bad guns and criminals who use them I'd gladly surrender mine to you. But until you can provide a solution to that equation, I'm not going to agree.

In your last paragraph, you're bringing up multiple variables that cause poor parenting and higher crime, etc. So I'm not about to disagree. They certainly don't make things better. But I do believe that Americans are experiencing a more rapid decline of the family unit than elsewhere in the world. Please note the word "believe". This is my opinion.

Issues guns often get conflated as if guns aren’t inherently dangerous. So saying this is bad parenting deflects from the obvious that the first issue is the gun, not the child.

So no person should leave a loaded gun out unattended, regardless of parent or not. The reason is again the obvious, guns are inherently dangerous. Again, the first issue is the gun, not the child.

Nobody wants your guns. Unless of course your some kind of criminal or have some mental health problems. It’s about keeping guns with their legal owners.