4G3NTian

I'd enjoy some stats that show a reduction in gun ownership and/or a raise in registration/NICS checks that have a relation to a reduction in violence violence, and not just gun violence. South London is one of the most violent places in the free world, more "hot" home invasions than anywhere in the US... but guns are illegal there. Regardless of what spiked deaths in Missouri, this did in fact coincide with the entire gun-owning conservative South buying up as many guns and as much ammo as they could find. There's still a shortage of it, as far as I can tell. They did indeed do this because of liberals entering office who would of course immediately 'snatch up all the guns' (though they did no such thing). Though not necessarily because of the guy's skin color. Of course whether or not they are directly related remains to be shown by the evidence given. Obama's administration charged the Center for Disease Control, after Sandy Hook, with treating firearms violence as a disease and studying the consequences. The CDC reported back with gun death (suicide + homocide) averaging 36,000 per year, while justified self-defense shootings average possibly as low as low as 60,000 per year, with an upper limit at 2.5 million (though this specific high number has other assumptions made, and is less accurate) self-defense gun related scenarios. Levitt, who I earlier mentioned, also shows with pretty strong evidence that even with the Clinton Assault Weapon ban of the 90's, the drop in crime that happened subsequently, had more to do with Roe v Wade 20 years earlier, thus curbing the 20-something year old criminal crowd that would been coming of prime criminal age in the 90's; than actual gun control laws had to do with the drop in violence/crime. Note that in his thought experiments he attempts to correlate gun control with curbing violence, not solely gun violence which gives erroneous results always in favor of gun control... even if more people were killed that year overall. Once again, Obama and the CDC's firearm study (which I recommend googling and reading), is possibly one of the most comprehensive studies done on US firearm crime/violence, and they seem to conclude it's about split, with the necessity for more future data. I noticed conclusions drawn from that report were quoted in the OP, I thought it'd be fair if self defense part were mentioned as well. IMHO, I trust Brady Campaign stats about as much as I'd trust NRA stats on the same subject, which is to say not at all.

Speaking of not being up to date: did anyone see the look on Bill's face when Ham proposed the horizon problem as debunking the Big Bang theory? ...and not something that was solved in the 60's. The quoting of which still doesn't address the very ominous Starlight problem. I'd like to know where all these people who don't know apparently anything about thermodynamics, keep quoting the second law as proof against evolution. I mean seriously. I was also blown away when Ham openly admitted he knows absolutely nothing about, or never bothered to study/research geomorphology. I mean I guess he would have to not have, in order to make some the claims he's making. This was really just an advertising ploy for Ham's museum, and to once again attempt to put Christian-specific creationism on the map. Will we then teach the creation stories of Islam, or Buddhism or Hinduism? Doubt it. Will science teachers have a subject on searching for the Mormon Heaven-planet Kolob with a telescope? What about Xenu and his ancient volcano-escaping spirit cargo jets? Who knows.

The NICS background check would most certainly help stop a felon or someone with documented mental health issues from purchasing a firearm from a documented FFL dealer, there is no doubt of that. It does not however stop a felon or wouldbe criminal from illegally obtaining one, and going about his business. Face-to-face transactions are obviously impossible to regulate (look how well it's working with the drug war), and thus rely on the integrity of the seller and his ability to sniff out a criminal based on limited interaction. Or for the seller to be legitimate in the first place. I sold a 9mm to who turned out to be a sheriff in a neighboring town, I was worried it would turn out to be a crazy. You never know. Tightening the hold does indeed increase demand, and therefore the illegal market. The biggest unfortunate side effect of that being that people who are already criminals, generally have easy access to this market; while regular folks, the ones worth defending, have no idea. Addressing the lowering of gun violence based on the education of at-risk areas is a more realistic answer to the gun problem. The only other good answer I can think of is a couple generations off, and that's the personalized Judge Dredd or new James Bond style, my-gun-only-works-for-me type gadget. As to the OP: I do recall reading in Steve Levitt's Freakonomics (of all the sources, I know), where he does a decent job showing with overwhelming data that un-fenced swimming pools are more dangerous every year to unsupervised children than a locked gun in the home. I'm not necessarily arguing that they're not dangerous or that stupid/bad people don't do harm with them, just the realism with widespread restrictions, and the consequences thereof. It would be awful to increase violence this way, much in the same way restricting access to drugs has made drug lords rich beyond imagination. I'm a newbie, so go easy on me

OP: When faced with this level of cognitive dissonance, you really just have to join the game. If you're talking about the Big Bang (or Bounce), for example, tell them that their deity of choice may have hit the "start button" on it, but then pour out how all the facts make it make sense where young Earth creationism doesn't, which is true. Life on Earth could have been sparked by something/someone extraordinary, but all evidence shows it evolved from there. Stuff like that. Be sure to mention radio telescopes and electron microscopes as the source of info, not secret evil scientist meetings. Round Earth theory didn't make sense generations ago because, where was Heaven and Hell, if not for above and below Earth? Widespread acceptance of the truth didn't disprove their beliefs, just changed them to match the facts. Heaven and Hell must be different planes of existence, as opposed to being in the clouds (which are just water vapor) or underground (hot rocks). What I'm saying is, instead of trying to disprove her (or anyone's) beliefs, force/allow them to conform their beliefs to facts given to us by the very nature and existence of our universe. Then sprinkle in real information from there. Also, frankly PHD in Christian anything gives you little right to make such wild claims about geomorphology or astrophysics or the like, a background in which would be necessary to do so... but would ultimately dramatically alter the way one views such concepts.