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On December 07 2015 02:06 Dizmaul wrote:
I think its fascinating that people seem to care so much about human life but when told 100 people die everyday from automobiles in the USA they dismiss it. As if gun control is a larger issue affecting more peoples lives. Where is the passion to lower that number? To make something not designed to kill safer for every day use. 100 people every single day die and there family's and loved ones have to deal with the tragic event.
Yeah I totally agree with you: in the same vein as gun control, I think we should establish some sort of test that people would have to pass before they are allowed to use cars, and we should be able to revoke that capacity when some people have proven that they drive in too dangerous a fashion. I would call that a permit... or a license perhaps
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On December 07 2015 02:06 Dizmaul wrote:
I think its fascinating that people seem to care so much about human life but when told 100 people die everyday from automobiles in the USA they dismiss it. As if gun control is a larger issue affecting more peoples lives. Where is the passion to lower that number? To make something not designed to kill safer for every day use. 100 people every single day die and there family's and loved ones have to deal with the tragic event.
The people dying in car crashes died due to an accident, something that usually cant be prevented and isn't done on purpose. People being shot in mass shootings is different, since someone is deliberatly killing other people. This means they died because someone killed them, not because they were involved in an accidant. Those things just cant be compared.
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Another reason for the difference with cars might be the satisfaction level with the work being done on it. People DO try all the time to make automobiles safer. There's lots of engineers employed to do that, there's a whole series of safety tests done by the government; every year they come out with new and better safety features for cars.
Thus it's not that people don't care about car safety, it's that people feel that car safety is being attended to well, and that there isn't any particular way to work on it more. People aren't agitating because they're content that the system is working as well as it can to prevent car accident deaths. Whereas on guns they feel the system could be doing a better job at it.
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United States24682 Posts
On December 07 2015 02:21 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2015 02:06 Dizmaul wrote:
I think its fascinating that people seem to care so much about human life but when told 100 people die everyday from automobiles in the USA they dismiss it. As if gun control is a larger issue affecting more peoples lives. Where is the passion to lower that number? To make something not designed to kill safer for every day use. 100 people every single day die and there family's and loved ones have to deal with the tragic event. Yeah I totally agree with you: in the same vein as gun control, I think we should establish some sort of test that people would have to pass before they are allowed to use cars, and we should be able to revoke that capacity when some people have proven that they drive in too dangerous a fashion. I would call that a permit... or a license perhaps
Wait, so cars require a license and guns don't (in many places), and yet there is still such a larger loss of life from cars?? (I actually don't disagree that licensing would make sense)
On December 07 2015 02:26 NikaLogy wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2015 02:06 Dizmaul wrote:
I think its fascinating that people seem to care so much about human life but when told 100 people die everyday from automobiles in the USA they dismiss it. As if gun control is a larger issue affecting more peoples lives. Where is the passion to lower that number? To make something not designed to kill safer for every day use. 100 people every single day die and there family's and loved ones have to deal with the tragic event. The people dying in car crashes died due to an accident, something that usually cant be prevented and isn't done on purpose. People being shot in mass shootings is different, since someone is deliberatly killing other people. This means they died because someone killed them, not because they were involved in an accidant. Those things just cant be compared.
The fact that car deaths are usually accidents (although is a DUI the same type of accident?) doesn't mean that you can't compare car deaths and gun deaths. You do need to put the numbers into perspective, though.
On December 07 2015 02:40 zlefin wrote:
Another reason for the difference with cars might be the satisfaction level with the work being done on it. People DO try all the time to make automobiles safer. There's lots of engineers employed to do that, there's a whole series of safety tests done by the government; every year they come out with new and better safety features for cars.
Thus it's not that people don't care about car safety, it's that people feel that car safety is being attended to well, and that there isn't any particular way to work on it more. People aren't agitating because they're content that the system is working as well as it can to prevent car accident deaths. Whereas on guns they feel the system could be doing a better job at it.
Car safety is being well attended to, yet there is still such a larger loss of life from cars? (I actually agree more should be done to try to make guns overall safer, similar to what we do with cars, although it will look somewhat different)
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Wow I did not say that cars are not safe or that anyone can drive one without a license or permit. I was simply saying its interesting to me there is not a larger group of people just as passionate in making them safer since way more people are affected by the "accidents". Drunk driving, speeding, running red lights/stop signs, ect. How are car manufactures and engineers stopping those things? Are they not making cars that exceed speed limits anymore? Most will argue this is not the responsibility of the manufactures but the person using the tool. I'm also not saying "cars are no big deal so guns are fine". I think both are serious issues that should be a constant discussion till solved.
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On December 07 2015 03:44 Dizmaul wrote:
Wow I did not say that cars are not safe or that anyone can drive one without a license or permit. I was simply saying its interesting to me there is not a larger group of people just as passionate in making them safer since way more people are affected by the "accidents". Drunk driving, speeding, running red lights/stop signs, ect. How are car manufactures and engineers stopping those things? Are they not making cars that exceed speed limits anymore? Most will argue this is not the responsibility of the manufactures but the person using the tool. I'm also not saying "cars are no big deal so guns are fine". I think both are serious issues that should be a constant discussion till solved.
I'm pretty sure there actually is a pretty big push for studying and improving safety of cars. Ignition interlocks (car breathalyzers) and red light cameras are both the result of heavy lobbying and activism, with the former achieving widespread ubiquity after the 90s and the latter also being adopted in quite a few places. I can't imagine that they managed to make ignition interlocks without some input and cooperation from car manufacturers.
There are also continued pushes towards mandatory seatbelt laws and forbidding cell phone use while driving across the U.S., directly regulating people's behavior. Not to mention the laws regulating how tinted your windows can be and the like.
Maybe we need some gun breathalyzers or brain scanners.
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On December 07 2015 03:51 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2015 03:44 Dizmaul wrote:
Wow I did not say that cars are not safe or that anyone can drive one without a license or permit. I was simply saying its interesting to me there is not a larger group of people just as passionate in making them safer since way more people are affected by the "accidents". Drunk driving, speeding, running red lights/stop signs, ect. How are car manufactures and engineers stopping those things? Are they not making cars that exceed speed limits anymore? Most will argue this is not the responsibility of the manufactures but the person using the tool. I'm also not saying "cars are no big deal so guns are fine". I think both are serious issues that should be a constant discussion till solved. I'm pretty sure there actually is a pretty big push for studying and improving safety of cars. Ignition interlocks (car breathalyzers) and red light cameras are both the result of heavy lobbying and activism, with the former achieving widespread ubiquity after the 90s and the latter also being adopted in quite a few places. I can't imagine that they managed to make ignition interlocks without some input and cooperation from car manufacturers. There are also continued pushes towards mandatory seatbelts and forbidding cell phone use while driving across the U.S., directly regulating people's behavior. Maybe we need some gun breathalyzers or brain scanners.
Guys, I can't use my phone in the car! That's a clear limit on my freedom of speech. I know that I'm a responsible enough driver that I'll pull over and text if I see other cars around or am approaching a turn/curve, so I should definitely be allowed to use my phone while I drive. And because banning phone use for anyone, no matter the circumstances, is a slippery slope, I'll just say the best solution is to make it legal for everyone. If there's a car accident, everyone will have a phone, so they can all call for an ambulance. Can you imagine how many fewer car fatalities there would be if everyone had a phone out while they drove?
+ Show Spoiler +I'm not saying it's a perfect comparison, but I did think maybe it had some humor value
I do think the car comparison is an interesting one. The argument certainly gets more heated around gun control even though in some respects the issue at stake is similar. I will say though that the car industry is (as far as I know) extremely regulated (see recent lawsuit against GM (?) for that model that they sold that had some serious safety flaw), in part, perhaps, because no one is contesting the fact that cars are dangerous and need to be regulated. + Show Spoiler +Which makes me think, can you imagine if gun makers/distributors were liable if people got shot with their guns?
Lots of speculation on my part here, but it's a thought provoking comparison. Glad someone brought it up.
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United States42694 Posts
I think the most serious issue with this line of comparison is that the founding fathers didn't enshrine the right to cars in the constitution. If they did I imagine people would demand the right to drive whatever they liked wherever they liked.
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United States24682 Posts
On December 07 2015 04:12 RuiBarbO wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2015 03:51 TheTenthDoc wrote:On December 07 2015 03:44 Dizmaul wrote:
Wow I did not say that cars are not safe or that anyone can drive one without a license or permit. I was simply saying its interesting to me there is not a larger group of people just as passionate in making them safer since way more people are affected by the "accidents". Drunk driving, speeding, running red lights/stop signs, ect. How are car manufactures and engineers stopping those things? Are they not making cars that exceed speed limits anymore? Most will argue this is not the responsibility of the manufactures but the person using the tool. I'm also not saying "cars are no big deal so guns are fine". I think both are serious issues that should be a constant discussion till solved. I'm pretty sure there actually is a pretty big push for studying and improving safety of cars. Ignition interlocks (car breathalyzers) and red light cameras are both the result of heavy lobbying and activism, with the former achieving widespread ubiquity after the 90s and the latter also being adopted in quite a few places. I can't imagine that they managed to make ignition interlocks without some input and cooperation from car manufacturers. There are also continued pushes towards mandatory seatbelts and forbidding cell phone use while driving across the U.S., directly regulating people's behavior. Maybe we need some gun breathalyzers or brain scanners. Guys, I can't use my phone in the car! That's a clear limit on my freedom of speech. I think this comparison would make sense somewhat if people wanted to be allowed to fire their gun from their car in public. As far as I'm aware even the NRA isn't pushing for that one.
I'm not saying it's a perfect comparison, but I did think maybe it had some humor value Your comparisons, flawed as they may be, are just going to be polarizing rather than funny.
Which makes me think, can you imagine if gun makers/distributors were liable if people got shot with their guns? I imagine if the gun didn't work properly, and as a result, people got hurt, then yes, the manufacturer could get in trouble. If bullets just fired off randomly without pulling the trigger, or the barrel exploded and injured someone despite proper care, that would be comparable to airbags not working or things like that.
Just some thoughts that came to mind while reading your post. I recognize you wanted it to be light rather than argumentative.
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On December 07 2015 02:40 zlefin wrote:
Another reason for the difference with cars might be the satisfaction level with the work being done on it. People DO try all the time to make automobiles safer. There's lots of engineers employed to do that, there's a whole series of safety tests done by the government; every year they come out with new and better safety features for cars.
Thus it's not that people don't care about car safety, it's that people feel that car safety is being attended to well, and that there isn't any particular way to work on it more. People aren't agitating because they're content that the system is working as well as it can to prevent car accident deaths. Whereas on guns they feel the system could be doing a better job at it.
while, personally, i think that trying to practically trying to compare autos and firearms is kind of foolish. certainly, a contributing factor to peoples' comfort levels has to do with the fact that not every single car accident casualty is a huge news story.
on top of that many people grow up around cars, are used to seeing cars from a young age used responsibly, and most likely haven't seen any major accidents themselves. it's almost as if growing up and being comfortable around cars develops some sort of disposition to not be afraid of it. a sort of culture...perhaps...a car culture.
On December 07 2015 04:30 KwarK wrote:
I think the most serious issue with this line of comparison is that the founding fathers didn't enshrine the right to cars in the constitution. If they did I imagine people would demand the right to drive whatever they liked wherever they liked.
people can do whatever they want with a car as long as it's on private property.
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On December 06 2015 18:04 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2015 16:18 oBlade wrote:
I think that's what makes it fascinating... the USA has more guns than it has cars on the road, yet the thing that isn't ultimately designed to kill people claims more lives than gun homicides. That's an utterly meaningless statement, it ignores the regularity of use, the lethality and a billion other variables. You might as well say "it's fascinating that the days in which Americans drink water outnumber the days in which they drive and yet, despite drowning historically being far more dangerous than driving, particularly in the years before 1900, driving results in more death". It's not in any way fascinating, it's utterly meaningless.
It's pretty uncontroversial that cars are used more often than guns and that guns are more lethal.
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There's another element, and that's that how much harm something causes due to accidents/equipment failures and how much harm something causes when used as a weapon are really perceived differently by society, even if the net public health effects aren't actually all that different.
We should probably compare rate of fatalities due to car accidents versus the rate of fatalities caused by gun accidents and rate of fatalities caused by people using cars as weapons versus the rate of fatalities caused by people using guns as weapons. From that we could (probably) say that cars are more prone to accidents and misuse than guns, but less frequently used as weapons, and let our policy thus be directed towards accident avoidance when we discuss cars.
The problem is that it's kind of hard for a lot of people to say that killing someone with a gun is an "accident" in the same way that not seeing someone in your rearview mirror and swerving into their lane is an "accident," or poor visibility or road conditions causing a collision is an "accident," or a spontaneous break failure causing you to crash into the car in front of you is an "accident." A gun misfiring and making someone lose their hand at the range is an "accident" in that sense, but not so much when someone uses the gun in anger to end a life.
I actually have wondered why cars are so rarely used as weapons. I guess they're a lot harder to conceal and a lot easier to avoid by running for cover/shelter such that once the alarm is sounded they can't do much.
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I think there is also a difference in say. A person who's car malfunctioned and they killed a person to someone who ran a red light and killed someone. I also don't think I would consider drunk driving a "accident", and again its just something that hits more peoples lives then gun control. Every two minutes a person is injured in a drunk driving accident. How many people do you all know who have been in a car accident or even died compared to that of being shot at. I grew up in NYC from age 5-22 and never once ran into a gun (must be very lucky). Cars on the other hand I know many people who have been seriously injured and my uncle died from a auto accident. In the end I don't think you should directly compare the two. I just found it fascinating that there is not a larger more frantic push for safety like gun control has.
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honestly though how much safer can driving get? there really arent many more regulations you can put on top of the already heavily regulated cars and driving.
the argument that this thread keeps on repeating however, is that guns arent regulated enough. no amount of regulation will prevent death, but its better to make an effort than to watch and do nothing. with guns, there is still a lot of effort to be made
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On December 07 2015 22:41 evilfatsh1t wrote:
honestly though how much safer can driving get? there really arent many more regulations you can put on top of the already heavily regulated cars and driving.
the argument that this thread keeps on repeating however, is that guns arent regulated enough. no amount of regulation will prevent death, but its better to make an effort than to watch and do nothing. with guns, there is still a lot of effort to be made
I agree, though you ought not second guess a government's ability to further regulate 
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Mandatory breathalyzer ignition locks in all cars that leave the conveyor belt would slash traffic deaths by at least 40%.
A nice case of legislative restriction that would work very well in practice.
Such cases aren't the norm, but gun control happens to be another one. You can't (and shouldn't) control people's behavior but you can limit their ability to make stupid decisions.
Drug prohibition, for example, works in exactly the opposite way as it provides addicts with more ways to ruin their life instead of alleviating their issue. Comparing the prohibition of mood-altering substances to the prohibition of deadly force is already a mental fart.
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On December 07 2015 22:41 evilfatsh1t wrote:
honestly though how much safer can driving get? there really arent many more regulations you can put on top of the already heavily regulated cars and driving.
the argument that this thread keeps on repeating however, is that guns arent regulated enough. no amount of regulation will prevent death, but its better to make an effort than to watch and do nothing. with guns, there is still a lot of effort to be made
Robot controlled cars. The dark future we all need because we have proven we can't handle texting and driving.
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I think cars can get much safer. Why is a car allowed to go 150-200 mph if speeding is a major cause of "accidents". It will be interesting if we make it to a world/country of self driving cars. We will be able to reminisce on how crazy it was in the days of the millions who died behind the wheel. I'll repeat myself again though I'm not saying this to bring guns down to a cars level. I'm saying it to bring cars up to gun level.
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On December 07 2015 22:41 evilfatsh1t wrote:
honestly though how much safer can driving get? there really arent many more regulations you can put on top of the already heavily regulated cars and driving.
the argument that this thread keeps on repeating however, is that guns arent regulated enough. no amount of regulation will prevent death, but its better to make an effort than to watch and do nothing. with guns, there is still a lot of effort to be made
I'm working on that exact question right now and frankly the answer to that is it can get much safer, especially in certain bigger cities. And perhaps this is counter intuitive to people, but according to decent urban planners now, it's not through regulation that streets and intersections can get safer, but through better design. You can't prevent bad driving, but you can make an urban environment that makes bad drivers less... lethal?
Most pedestrian and cyclist deaths happen at intersections, and there are a few things that make it worse, like wider car lanes that promote speeding, the length of crosswalks (which should be short, and this can be helped with wider sidewalks), the lack of pedestrian signage, the lack of bike infrastructure, long waiting time to cross (which gets pedestrians to jaywalk busy intersections and get killed all the time). Also traffic calming would go a long way to reduce the lethality of hitting pedestrians and cyclists.
As for car on car collisions, I've got nothing for you. Ban alcohol and phones! (But seriously, being caught texting and driving especially in urban areas should be a nightmare for the mofo who's caught.) Yet regulation is largely ineffective beyond the point we're at. But we can design cities and suburbs to be more forgiving to delinquency, stupidity and incompetence, without preventing good drivers from getting around.
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On December 07 2015 23:08 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2015 22:41 evilfatsh1t wrote:
honestly though how much safer can driving get? there really arent many more regulations you can put on top of the already heavily regulated cars and driving.
the argument that this thread keeps on repeating however, is that guns arent regulated enough. no amount of regulation will prevent death, but its better to make an effort than to watch and do nothing. with guns, there is still a lot of effort to be made Robot controlled cars. The dark future we all need because we have proven we can't handle texting and driving.
Jesus Christ am I tired of seeing idiots looking at their phones while driving a fucking car. Not to mention the traffic caused by all the idiots delaying traffic after the light turns green because they are on the phone. The cops don't enforce anything but inspection stickers and speed here...
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