Joe Kelley wrote:
"The United States has a gun homicide rate that is at least a dozen times higher than those of most other industrialized countries. It is 50 times higher than Germany’s, for instance. We don’t have 50 times as many mentally disturbed people as Germany does — but we do have many, many more guns."

If the author is just another of many people either deceived on the subject matter of lawful self defense, or another of many people willfully adding to the already existing pile of deception, then my participation is probably not welcome in that crowd; no more than an abolitionist was welcome during the fraudulent take-over of America when slavery was on the way out and the slave traders decided to make slavery "legal."

He's wrong that gun homicides are committed mostly by mentally ill people. You don't have to be crazy to kill somebody, and most murderers aren't. Your point about the abolitionist isn't clear to me.

My attempt at an analogy with the abolitionist through town was a portrait of me going through discussion forums. For the most part I am ignored, but when my viewpoint directly challenges the social fabric of the town, the sticks and stones start flying, and someone finds the tar and feathers, or the rope. The analogy works when I look at the experiences of a particular abolitionist named Stephen Pearl Andrews and I compare that example to the majority of my experiences involving basically the same principles fleshed out during efforts to compete in the market of ideas.

I try to be meticulous when attempting to understand what someone intends to covey with words. To do so with an author writing a book there is in that effort an example of one-way communication, unless the author is available for discussion concerning the actual, not the assumed, intentions for offering the ideas contained in words, as those words are offered into the market of ideas.

I was able to discuss intended meanings with Howard Bloom on his books the Lucifer Principle and the Global Brain, and that connection led to my connection here on this forum. My stay here was brief, as if my ideas were written in a foreign language, generating no connections of meaning; like a tourist passing through a town that is not a tourist town; perhaps.

I am up for discussion on the topics that interest me.

"He's wrong that gun homicides are committed mostly by mentally ill people."

I have my doubts about the accuracy of that sentence applied to inaccurate information offered here:

"The United States has a gun homicide rate that is at least a dozen times higher than those of most other industrialized countries. It is 50 times higher than Germany’s, for instance. We don’t have 50 times as many mentally disturbed people as Germany does — but we do have many, many more guns."

It is not merely a question about which information is accurate or not, nor it is merely a question about which information is entertaining or not, the subject matter concerns the survival of life on earth. I see that, and I can explain how I see that, as I have explained how I see that many times, in many places, yet that is what I am claiming to be similar to what an abolitionists saw when an abolitionist attempted to offer such ideas in the market of ideas as the abolitionist passed through town.

The subject matter of political economy tends to either inspire immoral conduct or moral conduct, leaving no one on any fences, and in one direction the verbal assaults feed into something now called flame wars, and in the other direction (rarely experienced in my travels) the exchanges of words tend to focus upon basic principles. The struggle between forces working to pile inaccuracy upon inaccuracy in one direction, and the same struggle involving forces intending to find elusive data agreeing with elusive data going in the other direction can be a battle lost to the forces intended to scatter all sense of productive discussion seeking agreement concerning basic knowable principles into the wind; carrying that idea along with the wind, on the way out of town.

My wife found some Amazon gift cards, which I can use on getting a needed lock picking set, and perhaps this book title. For me the subject matter is of great interest, and I am currently reading Eliot's Debates. If the sentence I found, and quoted from the author, is any indication of what the book is about, then my prejudice (experience) suggests to me that this book will be very difficult for me to read. I am also reading, at this time, a work by Murray Rothbard on the time period known as the Great Depression. That is very difficult for me to read for similar reasons as my prejudicial estimate concerning the book in this forum topic: there is no way to challenge the ideas that appear to be false, so as to gain insight into why they appear to be false, since the author is not available for questions. Then the topic is a topic concerning why does the author offer false information? What is the point?

Welcome back Joe! Since you want to "challenge the ideas that appear to be false", why not investigate and disprove them? And since the author is not available for questions, why not discuss it here? Do you imagine a pro-gun stance is unusual in America? You can hold your own as I recall...

Dwill, Zakaria does not say the majority of gun homicides are committed by mentally ill people in that quote, on the contrary...

Joe, you are certainly welcome to participate. We all have to try to be civil to each other. Differing opinions are welcome as long as they aren't accompanied by nastiness. So please do participate!

So far our check in's are...

Chris O'Connor
Dexter
Interbane
LevV
DWill
lindad_amato
LanDroid
Joe Kelley
KayR

check in.

Thank you.

It is refreshing to connect to people sharing ideas.

Please consider my participation to be subject to a few conditions.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/sho ... p?t=764204

That is me. That is the Joe Kelley invited to this connection medium.

I have yet to get the book. I was not able to secure the purchase of the book through an Amazon gift card; too late. I still have another avenue with an old Barnes and Noble gift card I can test at the nearby store.

Check In's...

Chris O'Connor
Dexter
Interbane
LevV
DWill
lindad_amato
LanDroid
Joe Kelley
KayR
Robert Tulip

I would like to participate. I will try to order the book asap!

gari

Excellent, gbodor!