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[scriver]

Rape isn't normal.

What, was the number now again, one in seven or six of all women have been raped? As horrible as it sounds, yeah, rape is normal.

Taking out your anger, feelings of inadequacy, and powerlessness, or even desire for sexual gratification out on someone else, against their consent, is not normal.

No, it's "normal". People take out their frustrations on their significant others all the time, and their kids, family and friends as well, though psychologically or purely physically more often than sexually. But it's the same underlying cause. Broken people are also normal people, you know. Insisting that only "non-normal" people rape or assault others just makes it harder to accept it when it turns out your father, brother or close friend who raped someone, and very easy to go into denial instead. "They can't be rapists; they're normal people".

One counterexample would be Tunisia, which has the least armed population in the world but which managed to overthrow its leader very quickly.  And has had democratic elections.

They're having big problems with re-disarming their populace now that the fighting is over, though. People want to keep their awesomes Mad Max metal sheet-clad-pick up-assault-vehicles. And guns.

[Montague]

Montague, do you really think banning the sale of assault weapons and large clips would be a drastic attack on the rights of Americans? I mean, when some stuff is made with the express purpose of killing people, and is largely used to kill people (and has almost no other legitimate use except shooting at a firing range) doesn't it seems logical to ban it sales, or at least tightly control it?

A better way to tackle the issue is with controlling access to these firearms, not trying to limit the types or configurations of the firearms sold. The latter doesn't really accomplish anything, especially since firearm manufacturers will figure out a dozen legal loop-holes to circumvent the dubious point of the laws anyways. If you ban .50 caliber rifles, they'll introduce a .499 caliber rifle next year. If you ban 30 round magazines, the cartel gunmen or whoever will make their own (its a sheet metal box with a spring, not complicated) or carry 3 times as many 10 round magazines. These types of laws are simply ineffective and thus only serve to deny law abiding people freedom, however insignificant it might seem. You feel the same way about firearms as I feel about snowmobiles. A pointless recreation that's stupid and potentially dangerous. Got it. However, the US has a widespread and engrained 'gun culture' and people feel very strongly about their firearms. Even more so then jackasses that own snowmobiles, but to intrude on and deny their recreation and freedom is to alienate them and that is a not a fair trade off.

Tighter access, sure. I'd almost say limiting the quantity of guns people can purchase, to counter straw purchases for example, would be a good idea, but it can be difficult to make something like that work too, you'd need a national database to track purchases, which is too big-brothery and costly for a lot of people to stomach. Things like that, erode at people's faith in government when the government erodes it's faith in it's citizens.

Basically, the type of thing you are suggesting would just piss off lawful people while accomplishing next to nothing of benefit. There are better ways to approach the problem.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

And, to build on that, we need to stop stigmatizing therapy and mental illness, so that people who need help don't feel completely isolated, fighting against something that could benefit them greatly and prevent them from harming themselves and others.

Yeah, that's never going to happen. I don't think there's ever been a civilization where being perceived as weak or in need of help isn't stigmatized.

"Hasn't yet happened" doesn't mean impossible, nor does it mean it's not a goal wholly worthy of being sought out.

I didn't say it wasn't a good goal. But it just isn't possible. Most people are far too naturally defensive to trust therapists. And I for one won't trust them until they don't have an incentive to keep people as mentally ill and as dependent upon them as possible.

[Jackrabbit]

-snip-

It's entirely possible I phrased my response badly. I'm not saying they're too stupid to do anything but shoot each other, my point was that people under the yolk of a tyrannical government are still people. In the context of Syria, there's a civil war going on, the government has no regard for civilian casualties and the country is pretty much a warzone. So the people there are going to be frightened, scared, making bad decisions, doing their best to protect themselves and their loved ones, generally acting like people. I fail to see how giving everyone in that situation a gun is going to end well in any way, shape or form. But even outside that context, it would still be a bad idea because Syrians aren't wildly different from people of other nations either. People ending up in the situation your average  Syrian is currently in would not react well at all, gun or no. And regardless, just giving everyone a gun isn't going to give them the capacity to effectively resist a tyrannical government aside from turning the country into Afghanistan, with a hundred different organizations fighting for a hundred different conflicting and certainly not noble reasons because people are different. Just because there's a civil war going on doesn't mean people are going to band together or act nobly.

It'd be like Afghanistan because even if everyone had guns, that doesn't mean they'll be able to oppose the government. Like I said, to go back to Syria, people in Syria are being shelled and bombed, and guns can't really do dick about that. If the government has tanks and planes and artillery and rockets and all that jazz, you can give people all the guns you want, that's not going to help do anything more but turn the country into a quagmire of guerilla warfare. Libya's revolution succeeded because of international intervention. If Gaddafi's army didn't have its planes, artillery, tanks, operational capacity, all of its ability to wage a war, blown to bits by NATO planes, do you think the rebels would have won?

I maintain that if everyone had guns, it would be worse, because then everyone would be able to kill each other a lot easier, but wouldn't be able to more effectively resist the government unless they also had the capacity to wage war on the scale the government was capable of. They might be capable of that in an incredibly backwards, third world country, maybe. But not anywhere where the government has tanks, planes, artillery, I've been over all that. Not unless your military is fighting right along side the rebels and if that's the case, they don't need everyone to have guns anyway. In fact, everyone having guns just makes it worse, even then. Just because somebody has a gun doesn't mean they'll join a revolution. It just means they have the ability to kill somebody, anybody else really easily. How is that a good thing?

Anyway, about the UN. They might not be the world government or police, but they're a good framework for creating an international body to deal with things like protecting civilians from tyrannical governments. Certainly that'd be better than everyone having guns, but I've already gone over that. It's what we need to strive towards because the international community has the capacity to protect civilians but for the most part don't. Libya was a big step in the right direction and the UN was a huge part of that. NATO stepped in, protected civilians and helped the Libyans win the civil war against a clearly tyrannical government without fighting the war for them, and they stepped in at the request of the UN. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about, that the international community should be capable of defending civilians against a tyrannical government.

There's a few concessions I have to make on this point: I have no idea how this would be implemented, the UN as it is currently is in no way capable of really doing so and there's sovereignity to consider and the potential for abuse. But it's what we need to work towards because giving everyone guns is not the solution. That just creates more problems, more violence and in absolutely no way guarantees they'd even be able to successfully resist a tyrannical government.

[Sheb]

Montague, I'm sorry, but the case of Europe, where guns are heavily reglemented and we have far fewer gun crime make me thing it can work.

[Truean]

One major point though, I'd rather have an individual case study tailored to each and every defendant than a bunch of studies. I can't deal with hypotheticals or abstractions. One size fits all, or tailor made...?

The reason anecdotal evidence doesn't work is that bias inevitably sinks in, through any number of ways.  People are notoriously rational, and the reason studies are dependable is because they seek to remove bias.  So while in your experience, you haven't noticed much aggression based sexual assault, or whatever, It's impossible that your sample group is skewed, you're hitting confirmation bias, or you're not looking for the specific signs. 

This isn't a slight against you or your profession, it's just the reason why "in my experience, children tend to pay for candy in change" isn't a reliable statement of fact.  If, as a cashier, I have three kids pay in change in one day, it's going to cement in my mind that kids are annoying and pay with gross sticky change.  I'm going to, in my own brain, without thinking, lower the relevance of the hundreds of times kids pay with crisp clean bills.  If called to testify about kids paying with change, my own personal bias is going to completely override the truth of the situation.

O but of course. I readily concede the weaknesses of rationalism and hopefully being aware of them will allow me to compensate for them as best I can. X result I reach will only be reflective of those I have studied and perhaps those similarly situated, which I know will invariably lead to false conclusions that I will do my best to discover and correct. I only wish some empiricists I know (not you) would acknowledge the flaws in that system as well. Otherwise you get crap like this spurious correlation between ice cream and murder when in actuality it is a violent crime rising with warmer weather.

I am curious though as to your opinion concerning practitioner "conferences" as a sort of peer review, though it is likely imperfect. For example, numerous bar associations hold conferences whereby lawyers and especially judges/magistrates are asked to come and discuss various legal concepts. These are typically divided into area of law including civil (tort, worker's compensation, employment law, contract, etc) and criminal (various criminal violations and procedures). Experiences are shared and discussed. We are told if every judge and attorney in the state who deals with the topic comes and shares experiences, that we have an invaluable and arguably complete representation of the criminal issues of the state. I suppose the argument goes "what did we leave out, everyone's here?"

Now, in addition to being skeptical/jaded, I'm worried this is at risk of becoming a giant echo chamber for numerous reasons. 1.) Force of personality will make some, particularly judges have more sway (though science has had its star bias effects too) 2.) You're only dealing with the punishment side of things, rather than a predictive side of things. 3.) What's said in court is often not the whole truth. 4.) Probably some other crap I'm forgetting.

I've considered asking them to invite some experts from other fields in to sort of give a presentation or two: maybe a psychologist or something to that effect. Don't get me wrong, keeping up with the constantly evolving law and new cases on point is clearly important, but I think it would be a good idea to provide some context.
______________________________________________________________
Also this:
http://news.yahoo.com/suspect-charged-gay-ga-mans-videotaped-beating-222306691.html
"David  •  Springfield, Illinois  •  1 hr 18 mins ago

    I wouldnt convict."

 

[Jackrabbit]

Probably the worst thing about this thread is that it's absolutely fascinating, but if you're involved in a discussion and you have to leave, it moves so fast and there's so much information that it's incredibly difficult to catch up. So, you know, if I end up not responding, sorry Montague! I do find this an interesting discussion and I promise I'm not ignoring you.

[SalmonGod]

I'd like to cast my vote in with the "rape is not normal and rapists are not normal people" camp.  Something can be common without being normal.  Just because rapists appear to be normal doesn't mean that they are.  Giving oneself over to impulses that harm another and/or projecting one's own psychological damages onto another person through sexual acts is not normal.  Serial killers often appear to be normal people as well, and can come from completely normal backgrounds.

There are two reasons I'm casting my vote in with this camp.  First, defining rapists as normal people (especially normal men) is a good way to linguistically engineer a common pre-conception of all men as suspected-rapist-until-proven-otherwise.  This, combined with defining rape as normal according to its frequency makes for a hellish existence of jaded paranoia for everyone.  I think it's already been mentioned how this isn't a healthy way to live, and social progress is rather difficult in a general atmosphere of distrust.

No, it's "normal". People take out their frustrations on their significant others all the time, and their kids, family and friends as well, though psychologically or purely physically more often than sexually. But it's the same underlying cause.

I'm not sure about this.  Everyone suffers lapses of judgment when under pressure, and harm people they care about.  I can think of times I regret hurting friends or family because I was snapping in frustration or simply hadn't thought through what I was saying.  This is normal.  Maybe there are similar psychological processes motivating rape, in that they're taking out frustrations on another, but there is a degree of severity here which definitely makes it not normal.  Just like I might snap at my kids once in a while with a little more harshness than they deserve and that's normal.  I have never known a parent who never lost their composure.  Making them feel completely unloved and worthless through extended daily tirades, on the other hand, would definitely not be normal, even though this happens in plenty of families.

[ChairmanPoo]

It doesn't even need to be that common. If most rapes don't end in murder, then the prevalence of rape victims will tend to increase over time.

[Montague]

-snip-

I'm not sure anybody is advocating giving everyone guns to overthrow a tyranny. Having them legal to own would be an individual choice. If somebody felt capable and willing to use it if need be, then you'd potentially have an able combatant if the situation arose (or deteriorated, rather) but obviously not everybody needs to be armed and mobilized for an opposition to work. Tanks and planes and artillery are potent tools, but conflicts are ultimately won and by guys with rifles holding ground and the bulk of an army's combatant soldiers are going to be just that, infantrymen, guys with rifles. A military might consist of 2% of the population. If you have just 20% of the populace armed and quarter of them are rebels, then the military has a problem.

Really though, an armed society is generally thought of as more of a deterrent against tyranny. Not every armed rebel movement succeeds, some crushed by professionals, its true. That doesn't mean an armed citizenry can't give a government second thoughts about it's survival if push comes to shove. You understand how messy, prolonged, expensive, destabilizing and difficult counterinsurgencies can be, even when the government is just fighting illiterate peasants with rifles out in the countryside. Plenty of regimes have been overthrown by an unarmed populace. Some have had to be disposed of by other governments and armies. Think of an armed populace as something in between.

The UN isn't really a legitimate organization, in the world-police sort of sense. It's there to simplify diplomatic exchanges that would occur anyways even if the UN didn't exist. That's why the security council works the way it does. One member can veto some action, because in real life, any one of those countries could stop that action if they wanted to, with economic sanctions, aircraft carriers or nuclear weapons or whatever. The UN recognizes that some countries are powerful enough to get their way no matter what anybody else thinks about it. Other times it's that nations don't want to get involved and simply won't recognize any effort to prod them into participation.

NATO / the USA are the closest the world really has to an international police that intervenes to thwart tyrannies and everybody hates them for that. So you'd really have trouble getting the UN or a similar organization to function like that because it's constituents could almost never agree on what action to take.

[Max White]

Probably the worst thing about this thread is that it's absolutely fascinating, but if you're involved in a discussion and you have to leave, it moves so fast and there's so much information that it's incredibly difficult to catch up. So, you know, if I end up not responding, sorry Montague! I do find this an interesting discussion and I promise I'm not ignoring you.

Yea, I sometimes try to give it a read, but my first response is always "Fuck this, what are you guys even talking about!"

[Leafsnail]

Well, Tunisia's success was less due to their people's effectiveness and more due to Ben Ali being smart enough to see what was coming and cut his losses early. It could have easily ended up like Libya and Syria if he had been more stubborn and shortsighted.

...Yeah, and?  This is still an example that somewhat blows up the idea of guns being needed to stage a revolution or combat tyranny.

As opposed to Jemen, which has the largest amount of guns per capita of any country that has a central government competent enough to keep track of that. Large parts of it are under the de facto control of local warlords and although they managed to get their president to run, it's unlikely that the nearly feudal structure of the local governments is going to change any time soon.

Ooook?  This seems completely irrelevant.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Well, Tunisia's success was less due to their people's effectiveness and more due to Ben Ali being smart enough to see what was coming and cut his losses early. It could have easily ended up like Libya and Syria if he had been more stubborn and shortsighted.

...Yeah, and?  This is still an example that somewhat blows up the idea of guns being needed to stage a revolution or combat tyranny.

Guns are needed for any revolution that isn't a velvet revolution, and those almost never happen.

[Virex]

As opposed to Jemen, which has the largest amount of guns per capita of any country that has a central government competent enough to keep track of that. Large parts of it are under the de facto control of local warlords and although they managed to get their president to run, it's unlikely that the nearly feudal structure of the local governments is going to change any time soon.

Ooook?  This seems completely irrelevant.

It is indeed only tangentially relater, I posted it to illustrate that a large amount of guns is by no means a guarantee that restrictive governments will be overthrown, especially if those same guns are what keep the structure intact.

[Leafsnail]

Guns are needed for any revolution that isn't a velvet revolution, and those almost never happen.

So you say this even though I just said an example that contradicts this idea pretty thoroughly?