Only as long as interesting things are being said :-)
There aren’t “private security forces” replacing governments
And nobody said that. But hiring guards for your farm/ranch/pasture is quite common and does happen to be private enforcement of property rights.
They consult relevant gun makers
I can’t imagine why contemporary gun makers would care about decades-old ivory. If anything, they’d prefer more constraints on sales of old guns as that enlarges the market for new guns.
And I don’t think anyone made a claim that NRA’s decision was correct from a conservationist point of view. The claim is that the law fails the cost-benefit analysis for certain (implied widespread) sets of values. I am sure ardent environmentalists are happy with it, but not everyone is an ardent environmentalist.
Do you actually know how many elephants are killed in Africa for non-ivory reasons?
Ah, good question. My pre-Google answer would be “some” and if pressed for numbers I’d say 10-20% at the moment, but with not much conviction. Accio Google!
Hmm… Lots of data but all of it is on “illegally killed” elephants which isn’t particularly useful in this context, as killing elephants is mostly illegal everywhere and so the meaning is just “human-killed”. My impression is that in areas with LOTS of poaching the great majority of elephants are killed for the ivory, but in areas with few “illegal kills” situation may differ. No data to support this impression, though. It also seems that there is a lot variability in the numbers killed year-to-year.
Only as long as interesting things are being said :-)
And nobody said that. But hiring guards for your farm/ranch/pasture is quite common and does happen to be private enforcement of property rights.
I can’t imagine why contemporary gun makers would care about decades-old ivory. If anything, they’d prefer more constraints on sales of old guns as that enlarges the market for new guns.
And I don’t think anyone made a claim that NRA’s decision was correct from a conservationist point of view. The claim is that the law fails the cost-benefit analysis for certain (implied widespread) sets of values. I am sure ardent environmentalists are happy with it, but not everyone is an ardent environmentalist.
Ah, good question. My pre-Google answer would be “some” and if pressed for numbers I’d say 10-20% at the moment, but with not much conviction. Accio Google!
Hmm… Lots of data but all of it is on “illegally killed” elephants which isn’t particularly useful in this context, as killing elephants is mostly illegal everywhere and so the meaning is just “human-killed”. My impression is that in areas with LOTS of poaching the great majority of elephants are killed for the ivory, but in areas with few “illegal kills” situation may differ. No data to support this impression, though. It also seems that there is a lot variability in the numbers killed year-to-year.