Laws And Rules And Regulations...oh My!

you're probably breaking the law right now

In the now locked gun thread I was trying to have a discussion about laws and their impact... So why not make it it's own thread and carry it over here!

"These people have made many rules that the rich may break but the poor may not. They take their tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule." Sitting Bull

So let's get into it. Whether it's gun laws or speed limits, every day we create more laws that few follow.... and whether or not you "get away with" breaking laws is typically decided by how much money you have. (*See Affluenza Teen)

What good are laws that regulate the caliber of a bullet or the size of a magazine when those that have no respect for laws are breaking one of the most fundamental and harshly punished laws already, MURDER. Who do we imagine would abide by these additional laws we consider writing?

What law ever stopped a crime from happening or undid the horror of it's impact?

Do laws and rules make you feel safe? If laws don't stop a crime from happening what is their purpose? Perhaps they exist only to create a recourse for revenge against those that break them, are unlucky enough to get caught and then can't afford to buy their way out of trouble.

tl;dr locks only keep people without tools out...justice is the whim of a judge...and other mad ramblings of a deranged lunatic.

If you're saying why have gun controls when people still commit murder, simple, guns are the most efficient way to kill loads of people, hence mass shootings happen.

Take away guns and what do you get, mass stabbings? I'd fancy my chances of surviving a crazed guy attacking a crowded place with a knife but I would fancy my chances a lot less if a gun was involved.

In the state of nature men quickly devolve into animalistic selfishness which is diametrically opposite to the concept of society, something we need badly to thrive because we are a very poor species otherwise.
Creating rules is the most intuitive and logical conclusion to solve the problem(and we get there pretty quickly). If an individual is shunned from society for doing something frowned upon he is much more likely to fall in line and behave in a more constructive fashion. Rules obviously need to be shared by all individuals.
Of course this doesn't stop sociopaths to break them nonetheless. However we can deter the majority and make it so the few that aren't persuaded are removed from the group. Obviously over time we have developed a way to adjust the punishment to the gravity of the infraction and so we range from small fines to death sentences.

If your angry neighbour doesn't poop on your car it's cause we possess laws, without them our society would have poop flying all over the place.

False.

Actually bombs are far more effective than guns at killing people.

There are 20,000 laws regarding gun control already. How many are being followed by the people that commit murder with guns now?

There are no gun stores in Chicago...yet

2,703 shootings...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we have poop flying everywhere already... and laws against pooping in public have little to no effect as a deterrent... visit New York City.

And do you really think a law is what is stopping my neighbor from pooping on my car?

And if we removed this "no pooping on cars" law you have imagined exists there will be a sudden and irreversible shift/a dramatic rise of people pooping on cars because it's legal?

Laws are not created for only one class of people (except ACA that is). Everyone is bound by the same rules/regulations.

Class has nothing to do with following the law or not. That is determined by the person, not how they were raised.

Mentioning that "Affluenza" Teen is a perfect example of the individual, not the class, that determines adherence of the law. He (or his lawyers) is using an excuse to justify his bad behavior, like how some people here uses the excuse "I can't help it, it's because it's the way I'm raised" or "society's fault!"

There are 3 things needed to commit a crime: Desire, Opportunity, Accessibility.

Sure, you can take guns away from every human being from the world, and mass shootings will go away. Mass murder will not, and people will lose the ability to fight back. Humans will kill regardless of the tool used to kill.

Gun control does nothing to stem the crimes itself, as people will break the law regardless if the law is there or not. In order for gun control to work, there would need to be a way for people to access guns easily without regulations, which doesn't happen in America. So, the laws in place are doing exactly what they are designed to do, and additional laws and regulations will do nothing more because the main issue has already been resolved.

Now, if we were to address mental health issues, we might find a solution towards the influx of mass murders. Also, if we stop glorifying mass murders, that might help prevent future mass murders....

and that's revenge. pure and simple. What gives someone the right to kill someone else? I read a story once that god had these words etched with lightning into stone....

Thou Shall Not Kill

and yet for reasons that escapes my understanding we seem to have added several exclusions for ourselves..

unless war is declared
or they killed someone first
or their crime is shocking and horrible
self defense
crime of passion
temporary insanity
they are so rich they don't know right from wrong (*Affluenza teen again)

I don't know specific pooping laws, it was just to make an example.
Anyway without laws we quickly turn into tribes. Your close ones or the ones you gain support from become part of a solid group who does not cooperate with the other groups and tries to take advantage of all of the others.

The creation of an organized society is a natural development of a group of individuals to minimize the chance of conflict(because that brings the demise of the group). This doesn't only happen in a nation, but even much smaller environments like say, a classroom.

True, if you're quantifying bombs as more efficient then you've clearly missed how they are much more difficult to obtain for a normal person, I won't argue that they are much better killing weapons, hence why suicide bombers are a thing. Guns are most efficient for the common citizen, otherwise they would use these more efficient means of killing that you aren't disclosing.

I do not support death sentence. I think jailtime should be used rehabilitate the individual, not compromise it forever. However it's a thing in certain parts of the world and so I cited it amongst the list of punishments.

There's many things, that's just one of them.

As for the rest of your "conclusion" it's also false.

We break laws every hour of every day whether it's rolling through stop signs or speeding to work... or fudging on our taxes.

We pick and choose which laws and rules are convenient for us to follow at that given time.

What is stopping seha from pooping on my car? A law against it or her lack of Desire, Opportunity and Accessibility?

I'm pretty sure everyone has walked by a car and thought, "You know, I'd like to poop on that thing." You know what stops them? It's not common decency. It's not fear of the owner retaliating. It's not anxiety of dropping your pants in public. It's laws like section 45-6-101, the only thing between us and seeing some guy on Shark Tank that's invented a fast and easy way to remove baked-on feces without taking off car paint with it. Think of the children!

I'm not saying you do. But a death sentence is a legal means to exact revenge on someone after they committed a crime.

It doesn't resurrect the person who was wrongly killed.

Nothing.

I'm all for removing capital punishment from our justice system (hell, I'm from Texas, we kill pretty much anyone who's killed others before). I would love to live in a society where capital punishment is not needed. However, I'm a realist and I do see the need for such punishments.

Sure, some Norwegian will post some stat saying that their country is great because they have such a low murder rate and no capital punishment, but that same Norwegian will conveniently forget that their society and mine are two completely different things.

#Ravael
Unfortunately decency, kindness and responsibility are not natural traits in all individuals. Some people need to be told to not do certain things or they would.

No they don't.

We keep electing people and call them law makers. So they make laws.

But really, laws are kinda a social glue.

So how about the Larry Niven solution? Part them out and call it restitution.

If they take a life, they shall give life with their organs.

Thank god we have the 8th Amendment then.

Really? Because I just did a quick search and everything seems to suggest guns are overwhelmingly the weapon of choice when it comes to murder, I can post some links if you doubt me.

common citizens (with guns or bomb vests) in shopping malls aren't the ones killing the most number of people.

you are simply giving greater importance to these so called "mass shooting" deaths because you feel strongly that guns are bad.

440 people were killed with guns in chicago, a city without guns, last year....Meanwhile we killed 4,000 people in pakistan with drone strikes.

Laws make it so individuals cannot destroy society because by breaking them they destroy themselves instead. Be it by losing resources(fines), being shunned or locked away entirely. Sure, they can cause danger because some crimes are unpredictable, but they have limmited capability to do so as long as someone is there to enforce laws.

I don't think it's working.

We seem to be coming apart at the seams despite the massive amounts of glue already in use....

I also don't support the current air strikes in various countries but that never really comes up. As for no guns in Chicago, sure you can't buy in Chicago but it's not going to stop people getting guns from outside Chicago.

I'm not totally dismissing your arguments for gun ownerships but whenever these threads crop up I always find the pro-gun people to be very dismissive to any anti-gun argument, I suppose we on the other side of the argument can be the same and I would very much change my tune if someone could give a convincing argument but I haven't seen it yet.

But the punishment follows the crime.

The crime has already happened and therefore it not been deterred.

Do you believe crime stops when an individual is put in prison?

Tidis, maybe you don't understand the term "gun-free zone" and what it means in regards to Chicago.

It's not only illegal to buy a gun in Chicago, it's also illegal to own or carry a gun in Chicago.

And yet, Chicago is one of the largest cities when it comes to gun violence.....

So, how's those gun laws working again?

Just because it's popular doesn't make it the most efficient, which is what you claimed. Also your claim of something not being an efficient tool for killing because you assume (incorrectly as well I may add) it's difficult to obtain is also false.