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 sebster wrote:


And to expand on your point about different circumstances in different states, it isn't just an issue for any potential bans, it's also a factor for any potential control measures. So a registration and recording system might seem quite viable in Chicago and New York, but be really impractical for people living in rural areas, where government services are a lot more scarce.

Aye, that sort of divide is rather sharp in the US. Many states are dominated by a few (in same cases, just one) metro areas. New York is probably the most stark example, where NYC might as well be its own state, or Oregon where you have Portland and "everything else" and half the population of the state (which has more land area than Scotland) lives in or around one city. In most of these cases the big metro areas also happen to typically be very ok with increased gun control measures (to the point where getting a gun of any sort in NYC, legally, is basically impossible) while the "everything else" is usually on the opposite end of the spectrum.

 Smacks wrote:
You would see the people who threaten them armed, without impediment,

Given that you just accused me of strawmanning the argument the irony is delicious

 Smacks wrote:
and you advocate making the weak responsible for their own defense, rather than working towards a safer environment for them.

You make it sound like giving people the means to defend themselves is a bad thing. Are you objecting to giving weaker people the ability to defend themselves as you work "towards a safer environment"?

But keep plugging away at false dilemmas and nirvana fallacies.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
You would see the people who threaten them armed, without impediment,

Given that you just accused me of strawmanning the argument the irony is delicious

I didn't just accuse you, it was what you were doing. And where is the irony? Do you, or do you not keep saying that guns are a human right, and that the right should not be infringed? Does that not mean that any citizen should be able to buy a gun without restriction, no questions asked? How have I misrepresented your position? Isn't that exactly what you always argue for, and why you are so vocally against gun control?

You make it sound like giving people the means to defend themselves is a bad thing. Are you objecting to giving weaker people the ability to defend themselves as you work "towards a safer environment"?

Arguing that the solution to gun violence is more guns, is like arguing that the solution to a noisy room is to shout louder. In the short term it might work, and you can make yourself heard for a bit, but in the long term you're just adding to the noise of the room, and forcing everyone else to shout too. If you want people with a weak voice to be able to hold their own, then the solution is to turn the volume down, not hand out megaphones.

 Smacks wrote:
I didn't just accuse you, it was what you were doing. And where is the irony? Do you, or do you not keep saying that guns are a human right, and that the right should not be infringed? Does that not mean that any citizen should be able to buy a gun without restriction, no questions asked? How have I misrepresented your position? Isn't that exactly what you always argue for, and why you are so vocally against gun control?

That was exactly my point.... if you omitted any prior references I made to criminals, the mentally ill, and other disqualified people to being prohibited from possessing firearms. Otherwise great strawman.

 Smacks wrote:
Arguing that the solution to gun violence is more guns, is like arguing that the solution to a noisy room is to shout louder. In the short term it might work, and you can make yourself heard for a bit, but in the long term you're just adding to the noise of the room, and forcing everyone else to shout too. If you want people with a weak voice to be able to hold their own, then the solution is to turn the volume down, not hand out megaphones.

False equivalence leading into a Nirvana fallacy

Then again I should have known what to expect from any exchange with you when you attempted to claim that two criminal gangs trying to kill each other was somehow an exercise of Second Amendment rights. You may continue to hold your opinion as you see fit. I have attempted, on occasion too numerous to count, to use facts, reason, evidence, and logic to discuss this with you in good faith hoping for at least an honest discussion. To date that has been fruitless so I see no point in attempting to engage with you.

 Smacks wrote:

You make it sound like giving people the means to defend themselves is a bad thing. Are you objecting to giving weaker people the ability to defend themselves as you work "towards a safer environment"?

Arguing that the solution to gun violence is more guns, is like arguing that the solution to a noisy room is to shout louder. In the short term it might work, and you can make yourself heard for a bit, but in the long term you're just adding to the noise of the room, and forcing everyone else to shout too. If you want people with a weak voice to be able to hold their own, then the solution is to turn the volume down, not hand out megaphones.

Saying that law abiding citizens should have the right to own guns and exercise self-defense when necessary is not the same thing as claiming that the solution to gun violence is more guns.

Although, TBF, there are people who do think that. They're pretty much universally regarded as wack-jobs though.

 Smacks wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
You would see the people who threaten them armed, without impediment,

Given that you just accused me of strawmanning the argument the irony is delicious

I didn't just accuse you, it was what you were doing. And where is the irony?

That word "accused"? I don't think it means what you think it does.

 Smacks wrote:

You make it sound like giving people the means to defend themselves is a bad thing. Are you objecting to giving weaker people the ability to defend themselves as you work "towards a safer environment"?

Arguing that the solution to gun violence is more guns, is like arguing that the solution to a noisy room is to shout louder. In the short term it might work, and you can make yourself heard for a bit, but in the long term you're just adding to the noise of the room, and forcing everyone else to shout too. If you want people with a weak voice to be able to hold their own, then the solution is to turn the volume down, not hand out megaphones.

Try graphing overall homicide rate vs gun ownership rates for all the world's nations sometime. It's relatively easy to find with a little digging, the UN publishes statistics on both. Not every nation is included (for example, a lot of middle eastern nations are missing because the various wars have made it a nightmare to calculate homicide rates), but you'll find two things if you go through the effort:

1. There's a general negative relationship between gun ownership rate and overall homicide rates. That is to say, the more guns there are, the lower the homicide rate tends to be.

2. The data is so scattered that anyone who's ever taken a statistics class should immediately see that there's no meaningful correlation between the two stats.


From that, you can pretty easily conclude that gun ownership rate has very little influence on overall homicide rates, but that there is a slight relationship (which may be guns acting as a deterrent, but is more likely related to the fact that impoverished nations have lots of crime but few guns, while developed nations often have high gun ownership rates but very, very, very low crime).

If you do a little more digging, you will find some instances in which gun control measures have dropped the gun homicide rate. Fewer guns, fewer homicides with guns. However, in each instance of this that I've ever seen, including both Canada and Australia's widespread gun control measures, the gun control measures only decreased the gun homicide rate, but the overall homicide was unaffected. Criminals simply used more knives, blunt objects, etc. The same is true of suicides (suicide by gun would decrease, but the overall rate remained the same as people simply committed suicide by other means).

So, in a sense, the claims by both sides of the aisle are true; more guns tends to mean less crime, but fewer guns also means fewer gun homicides. Both arguments are, to a degree, red herrings. In the big picture, it's almost trivial to demonstrate that gun ownership has nothing to do with the overall homicide rate, or the overall violent crime rate. Violent crime and homicide is almost exclusively driven by something else (hint: social inequality and/or divisive political situations such as wars, racial conflicts, etc). You want to stop crime? Don't waste your time on meaningless gun control measures. Start working on welfare reforms or something instead.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Although, TBF, there are people who do think that. They're pretty much universally regarded as wack-jobs though.

Sadly, that is true. However I do think that number of people is much lower than many anti-gun people seem to suggest. What I find frustrating is that many anti-gun/pro-gun control people hear someone say "Law abiding citizens should maintain the right to own firearms and exercise self-defense" and they hear "more guns are the answer to every problem." It's really strange. It's like some people already have an idea in their head about what gun owners are and aren't actually interested in learning about the issue or listening to what many gun owners are actually saying.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
I didn't just accuse you, it was what you were doing. And where is the irony? Do you, or do you not keep saying that guns are a human right, and that the right should not be infringed? Does that not mean that any citizen should be able to buy a gun without restriction, no questions asked? How have I misrepresented your position? Isn't that exactly what you always argue for, and why you are so vocally against gun control?

That was exactly my point.... if you omitted any prior references I made to criminals, the mentally ill, and other disqualified people to being prohibited from possessing firearms. Otherwise great strawman.

I think it is you that has a nirvana fallacy, imagining that "criminals", the mentally ill, and domestic abusers will somehow be identified and disqualified before committing a crime.

And, your position being unclear doesn't mean I am strawmaning. You have explained that you don't want criminals and the mentally ill to obtain guns, and I believe you. Even though 2nd amendment rights will always make it near impossible to stop them.

That is not the same as me having to explain to you for two pages in clear language, that I disagree with attacking the character of gun owners, while you completely ignore it and keep punching away at your strawman. Or the time I said the bill of rights wasn't really relevant to one particular discussion, and you completely twisted that around and accused me of saying "the bill of rights is outdated", which you then kept beating for about 3 pages, and I had to repeat myself a ridiculous number of times, and even shout it at you in 22 point bold type, and you still didn't listen, and even brought it up again in another topic! So how dare you accuse anyone of not arguing in good faith.

Lastly, other countries are not "nirvana fallacies". They are "real places", which have lower crime rates than the US.

DarkLink wrote:That word "accused"? I don't think it means what you think it does.

I know what it means, I was just emphasising that the accusation was founded. There is no need to be patronising.

 Smacks wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
I didn't just accuse you, it was what you were doing. And where is the irony? Do you, or do you not keep saying that guns are a human right, and that the right should not be infringed? Does that not mean that any citizen should be able to buy a gun without restriction, no questions asked? How have I misrepresented your position? Isn't that exactly what you always argue for, and why you are so vocally against gun control?

That was exactly my point.... if you omitted any prior references I made to criminals, the mentally ill, and other disqualified people to being prohibited from possessing firearms. Otherwise great strawman.

I think it is you that has a nirvana fallacy, imagining that "criminals", the mentally ill, and domestic abusers will somehow be identified and disqualified before committing a crime.

And, your position being unclear doesn't mean I am strawmaning. You have explained that you don't want criminals and the mentally ill to obtain guns, and I believe you. Even though 2nd amendment rights will always make it near impossible to stop them.

That is not the same as me having to explain to you for two pages in clear language, that I disagree with attacking the character of gun owners, while you completely ignore it and keep punching away at your strawman. Or the time I said the bill of rights wasn't really relevant to one particular discussion, and you completely twisted that around and accused me of saying "the bill of rights is outdated", which you then kept beating for about 3 pages, and I had to repeat myself a ridiculous number of times, and even shout it at you in 22 point bold type, and you still didn't listen, and even brought it up again in another topic! So how dare you accuse me of not arguing in good faith.

Lastly, other countries are not "nirvana fallacies". They are "real places", which have lower crime rates than the US.

DarkLink wrote:That word "accused"? I don't think it means what you think it does.

I know what it means, I was just emphasising that the accusation was founded. There is no need to be patronising.

I think all that would be plenty fair if you just at the same time would admit that American gun policy when at it's most permissive is perfect. As well as the fact american gun culture is a flawless gem among all cultural forces in the world. Ultimately any opinion, "Facts" or "Evidence" that might support a change that is in any way an (real or imagined) inconvenience, delay, revision or other restriction on gun ownership is dishonest, reprehensible and can only have the effect of harming law-abiding citizens especially children.

I think so long as you're not explicitly endorsing these common-sense self-evident truths it's hard to assume you're approaching this topic in good faith.

 DarkLink wrote:
Try graphing overall homicide rate vs gun ownership rates for all the world's nations sometime. It's relatively easy to find with a little digging, the UN publishes statistics on both. Not every nation is included (for example, a lot of middle eastern nations are missing because the various wars have made it a nightmare to calculate homicide rates), but you'll find two things if you go through the effort:

1. There's a general negative relationship between gun ownership rate and overall homicide rates. That is to say, the more guns there are, the lower the homicide rate tends to be.

2. The data is so scattered that anyone who's ever taken a statistics class should immediately see that there's no meaningful correlation between the two stats.

For starters, the most basic stats understanding will tell you that just putting up countries on a single chart will tell you nothing when other factors also play a major part. So it isn't surprising that when you did just that, you found no clear relationship.

This is like looking for a link between smoking and cancer, and drawing a population across all age groups, and shockingly finding data that included 14 year old smokers and 80 year old non-smokers couldn't pick out a clear relationship between smoking and cancer.

Instead, fairly obviously, you control other factors. To pick out the relationship between smoking and cancer you control for age. Once you compare the 40 year old smokers with the 40 year old non-smokers, the relationship becomes clear. Similarly, with guns while it's much harder to completely control all other factors, if we limit our sample to developed countries (and thereby have some measure of control for poverty, education and policing effectiveness) we see a very clear relationship develop.

Fewer guns, fewer homicides with guns. However, in each instance of this that I've ever seen, including both Canada and Australia's widespread gun control measures, the gun control measures only decreased the gun homicide rate, but the overall homicide was unaffected. Criminals simply used more knives, blunt objects, etc.

Homicide has declined over that period. Now, I won't argue that the gun ban had much or anything to do with it, but that is largely because there weren't many guns in Australia before the ban, and used in few murders. But that doesn't mean you get to claim something that isn't true.

The same is true of suicides (suicide by gun would decrease, but the overall rate remained the same as people simply committed suicide by other means).

Completely false. To understand why, you need to read about suicide, and the importance of triggers. To describe it very quickly, having an object in the house, any object, that a person can strongly associate with the act of suicide. And when that object is able to be used with very little prep time, well then it's no surprise that having a gun in the house is a major predictor of suicide.

So, in a sense, the claims by both sides of the aisle are true; more guns tends to mean less crime, but fewer guns also means fewer gun homicides. Both arguments are, to a degree, red herrings. In the big picture, it's almost trivial to demonstrate that gun ownership has nothing to do with the overall homicide rate, or the overall violent crime rate. Violent crime and homicide is almost exclusively driven by something else (hint: social inequality and/or divisive political situations such as wars, racial conflicts, etc). You want to stop crime? Don't waste your time on meaningless gun control measures. Start working on welfare reforms or something instead.

It's true that other factors, particularly economic factors, are much bigger drivers of homicide than guns. But it's completely false to claim that guns don't play a part.

To return to the smoking analogy, if someone works in a leaking nuclear power plant, then resolving that will help more than quitting smoking. But that doesn't mean smoking doesn't play a part as well.

That doesn't mean ban guns, just as it doesn't mean smoking needs to be banned. But smokers need to be honest about what cigarettes do, and gun owners need to be honest about what gun proliferation does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Because I get the rest of the week off and this looked like work, I actually did a break down of guns per capita against murders per capita, for the 20 richest developed countries. I excluded Switzerland because they're screwy (high gun ownership but with really strict controls).

The table is hard to read because I don't know html, but the first stat is guns per capita, the second is murders per capita. A straight forward reading splits these countries in to the ten with most guns and the ten with the least guns, and the ten with the most guns have an average murder rate of 1.6, the ten with the least guns have 0.95. Removing the US as a big outlier probably gives a better picture, the other 9 countries with the most guns average 1.25. If we start getting even more stringent and remove the other outliers, Norway for having a high murder rate, and Japan for having a weirdly small murder rate, we shift the averages to 1.02 and 1.14, so even once we've picked out every country that could possibly be seen as outlier, the countries with more guns still have more murders.

I've added two graphs at the bottom, one with the US and one without. The relationship is quite clear.

Japan 0.6 0.3
South Korea 1.1 0.9
Netherlands 3.9 0.9
United Kingdom 6.6 1
Israel 7.3 1.8
Spain 10.4 0.8
Italy 11.9 0.9
Denmark 12 0.8
Australia 15 1.1
Czech Republic 16.3 1
Belgium 17.2 1.6
New Zealand 22.6 0.9
Finland 29.1 1.6
Germany 30.3 0.8
Austria 30.4 0.9
Canada 30.8 1.6
France 31.2 1
Norway 31.3 2.2
Sweden 31.6 0.7
United States 88.8 4.7

 Hordini wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Although, TBF, there are people who do think that. They're pretty much universally regarded as wack-jobs though.

Sadly, that is true. However I do think that number of people is much lower than many anti-gun people seem to suggest. What I find frustrating is that many anti-gun/pro-gun control people hear someone say "Law abiding citizens should maintain the right to own firearms and exercise self-defense" and they hear "more guns are the answer to every problem." It's really strange. It's like some people already have an idea in their head about what gun owners are and aren't actually interested in learning about the issue or listening to what many gun owners are actually saying.

Presumably, the problem is that you are not a criminal at birth. Most criminals start out as law abiding citizens who, as you say, have the right to own firearms.

And if the problem is 'Restricting guns would not affect criminals since they will just get them illegally, whereas law abiding citizens won't and will be the punished ones' then the problem is with the police force if they can't stop that.

I do not believe the benefit of having firearms so available outweighs the risks.

 Ashiraya wrote:


And if the problem is 'Restricting guns would not affect criminals since they will just get them illegally, whereas law abiding citizens won't and will be the punished ones' then the problem is with the police force if they can't stop that.

With ~300 million firearms in civilian hands (exceeding the number of automobiless), the practicalities are mind boggling. Furthermore, police forces in the US are generally organized at the local level, unlike most European nations, each municipal police department or county sherrifs office is its own agency with its own priorities and agendas and are not any sort of unified or coordinated whole. Federal agencies like the ATF who's job it is to track things like NFA items (registered automatic weapons, civilian owned destructive devices like cannons & grenades, etc) have had major issues with keeping..."accurate" records, particularly as NFA weapons pass through different owners after multiple decades, sometimes after nearly 80 years in some cases.

Expecting the police to be able to effectively control the sheer number of weapons in civilians hands, and the attitudes of the populace, is probably unrealistic. It certainly hasn't worked with drugs, hasn't worked with IP piracy, didn't work with alcohol, etc.

If there were a very small number of weapons and different social attitudes, then it might be something the police could handle, but that ship sailed (and sank) lifetimes ago.

 AdeptSister wrote:
I think the reason some people are asking for a universal gun registry is not to take guns from lawful citizens, but to figure out where all the weapons criminals are using come from. There has to be a moment where a legal gun turns into an illegal one: if it can be traced, we can hopefully intercede.

But it is good to hear why some people are so against it.

We know where they're coming from, broadly speaking, because despite the lack of national registries, the ATF and various law enforcement agencies have traced back guns.

Straw purchases, private sales, and robberies, of individuals and (more rarely) gun stores. That's where illegal guns come from.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Presumably, the problem is that you are not a criminal at birth. Most criminals start out as law abiding citizens who, as you say, have the right to own firearms.

Correct. The Anglo-American judicial system starts with the presumption of innocence. Most criminals who start out as law abiding citizens also have the right to liberty, and should not be incarcerated without a crime being committed. People should only lose their rights when they have committed a crime, and been found guilty. This is one of the hallmarks of living in a free society - that rights are respected and not simply removed for political expediency.

 Ashiraya wrote:
And if the problem is 'Restricting guns would not affect criminals since they will just get them illegally, whereas law abiding citizens won't and will be the punished ones' then the problem is with the police force if they can't stop that.

I don't believe that any Police force has yet successfully implemented a Pre-Crime Division. Police very rarely stop crime. There are not enough police to be on patrol to do this on a consistent basis. That is why their role is usually most prevalent after the crime has been committed

This thread started because an innocent bystander was killed as two criminal gangs opened fire on each other, and at least one automatic weapon was used. Seeing as criminal gangs are highly unlikely to be able to legitimately purchase a firearm, and that automatic weapons are banned at a State level, I think that this instance is proving that criminals will get their weapons illegally.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I do not believe the benefit of having firearms so available outweighs the risks.

You are entitled to your opinions, but for my own curiosity I wonder what evidence you relied upon to come to your conclusion


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AdeptSister wrote:
I think the reason some people are asking for a universal gun registry is not to take guns from lawful citizens, but to figure out where all the weapons criminals are using come from. There has to be a moment where a legal gun turns into an illegal one: if it can be traced, we can hopefully intercede.

But it is good to hear why some people are so against it.

A study of inmates in Cook County Illinois (where Chicago is located) found that those they interviewed got their firearms from family members, gang members, or bought off the black market - all of which are illegal, and for which strong penalties already exist. Many of the guns used in crime can already be traced without the use of a gun registry.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

You are entitled to your opinions, but for my own curiosity I wonder what evidence you relied upon to come to your conclusion

Sebster's huge-ass post a couple of posts above yours is a good start.

That the US would resist gun restrictions simply through inertia (like Vaktathi says) doesn't defend the status quo to me. All it does is making the problem take longer to solve; it does not make the problem less problematic.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

You are entitled to your opinions, but for my own curiosity I wonder what evidence you relied upon to come to your conclusion

Sebster's huge-ass post a couple of posts above yours is a good start.

That the US would resist gun restrictions simply through inertia (like Vaktathi says) doesn't defend the status quo to me. All it does is making the problem take longer to solve; it does not make the problem less problematic.

My point is that simply trying to restrict firearms by fiat when they're already available in mind-bogglingly vast quantities amongst a population that does not wish to give them up, is a losing proposition. Quite simply, if your goal is drastically eliminate firearms availability, trying to do it through simple restriction is probably the least effective way to do it. Despite having spent trillions of dollars and employing hundreds of thousands of people in the job, drugs are as available as ever, firearms would not likely be any different. US law enforcement agencies have pretty conclusively proven that they're just not effective in such roles. Firearms are a durable and widely distributed commodity. They last practically forever and the supply is enormous. The best efforts would be economic means (as is happening to cigarettes, they're both more expensive than ever and it's increasingly inconvenient to find a place to use them), rather than legal prohibition and restriction.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

You are entitled to your opinions, but for my own curiosity I wonder what evidence you relied upon to come to your conclusion

Sebster's huge-ass post a couple of posts above yours is a good start.

That the US would resist gun restrictions simply through inertia (like Vaktathi says) doesn't defend the status quo to me. All it does is making the problem take longer to solve; it does not make the problem less problematic.

My point is that simply trying to restrict firearms by fiat when they're already available in mind-bogglingly vast quantities amongst a population that does not wish to give them up, is a losing proposition. Quite simply, if your goal is drastically eliminate firearms availability, trying to do it through simple restriction is probably the least effective way to do it. Despite having spent trillions of dollars and employing hundreds of thousands of people in the job, drugs are as available as ever, firearms would not likely be any different. US law enforcement agencies have pretty conclusively proven that they're just not effective in such roles. Firearms are a durable and widely distributed commodity. They last practically forever and the supply is enormous. The best efforts would be economic means (as is happening to cigarettes, they're both more expensive than ever and it's increasingly inconvenient to find a place to use them), rather than legal prohibition and restriction.

Prohibition has never achieved its intended goals at any time in the history of the US. Trying to make it work yet again with guns wouldn't work either.

The crux of the issue here is that the US culture is fundamentally different than that of Europe and Australia. We desire a much higher amount of individual freedom and willingly accept living with cost of that freedom. Someone from the EU, Oz or Canada might look at the US and think that the govt shouldn't be so permissive and allow people to do things like own small arsenals of guns, whereas we've decided, since the founding of our country that the govt doesn't have the right to tell us we can't. Purchasing guns is an act of commerce and we've given the govt the power to control/restrict commerce to a certain extent but we've also set a clear legal precedent that no level of govt can prohibit a law abiding citizen from owning a gun simply because the govt doesn't wish the citizen to possess one.

While a murder rate of 4.5 is higher than other nations, the US has always had a higher murder rate than other Western nations. Due in large part to the fundamental societal differences that set the USA apart from other Western countries. Having a relatively high murder rate isn't a recent phenomenon and the current rate is the lowest it's been in modern history.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1

In 1960 the US murder rate was 5.1, in 1975 it was 9.6, in 1985 it was 8.0, in 1995 it was 8.2 and in 2005 it was 5.6. Today there are more firearms owned by private citizens than ever before in US history. More states have less restrictive concealed carry laws and more citizens have concealed carry permits than ever. The firearms industry makes more money than ever. Yet the murder rate is half of what it was 20 years ago and has steadily declined for decades. The proliferation of firearms ownership in the US hasn't caused an increase in murder rates, that's an established fact. Neither should the fact that a country, deliberately founded to be different than Europe and other Western nations, is still fundamentally different from other Western nations today in both positive and negative ways. Other people can disagree with or disapprove of our the ways in which our society differs but the majority of the people who live here are happy with it the way it is and it is unlikely to undergo drastic changes anytime soon.

I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?

Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.

 AdeptSister wrote:
I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?

Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.

100% Americans own guns. That other 78% are just people who happen to live here, but they're not American.

 Vaktathi wrote:
My point is that simply trying to restrict firearms by fiat when they're already available in mind-bogglingly vast quantities amongst a population that does not wish to give them up, is a losing proposition.

Well, if the majority doesn't want to give them up, then obviously it won't happen because it'd be undemocratic.

Of course, as Chongara says, that is not necessarily the case.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Although, TBF, there are people who do think that. They're pretty much universally regarded as wack-jobs though.

Sadly, that is true. However I do think that number of people is much lower than many anti-gun people seem to suggest. What I find frustrating is that many anti-gun/pro-gun control people hear someone say "Law abiding citizens should maintain the right to own firearms and exercise self-defense" and they hear "more guns are the answer to every problem." It's really strange. It's like some people already have an idea in their head about what gun owners are and aren't actually interested in learning about the issue or listening to what many gun owners are actually saying.

Presumably, the problem is that you are not a criminal at birth. Most criminals start out as law abiding citizens who, as you say, have the right to own firearms.

And if the problem is 'Restricting guns would not affect criminals since they will just get them illegally, whereas law abiding citizens won't and will be the punished ones' then the problem is with the police force if they can't stop that.

I do not believe the benefit of having firearms so available outweighs the risks.

Neither does any benifit from alcohol outweigh the risk and social damage it causes, but there ya go. Prohibition was tried with that and led to a flourishing of the criminal element who wasn't above murder to get to those who wanted it, making those who purchased alcohol accomplices to the murders.

 Chongara wrote:

 AdeptSister wrote:
I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?

Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.

100% Americans own guns. That other 78% are just people who happen to live here, but they're not American.

We currently have 7 unrestricted concealed carry states and 35 shall issue states with zero states banning concealed carry. A drastic change from 1986 when 16 states didn't even issue concealed carry permits. The state legislatures and both state and federal courts have struck down restrictive gun laws so the laws and the people's representatives are aligned with upholding the right to bear arms. If people want more gun control why have states steadily moved away from restrictive gun control over the past 30 years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_States

Polls don't always accurately reflect the will of the people. Exit polling for national elections consistently shows that gun control is a very low priority for voters. Nobody is pro murder. When the media devotes a large amount of coverage to a mass shooting and pundits and activists misconstrue proposed gun laws that would have had no bearing whatsoever on the perpetration of the crime as a panacea for gun crimes then yes you can get people to support in polling. When it comes time to actually pass legislation on stricter gun laws there is rarely enough support to get it done. The few exceptions are in states that already have extremely restrictive gun laws.

If people didn't want to own guns we wouldn't see record numbers of gun sales and concealed carry permits issued and if people really wanted more gun control laws then politicians would pass them.


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 Ashiraya wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
My point is that simply trying to restrict firearms by fiat when they're already available in mind-bogglingly vast quantities amongst a population that does not wish to give them up, is a losing proposition.

Well, if the majority doesn't want to give them up, then obviously it won't happen because it'd be undemocratic.

Of course, as Chongara says, that is not necessarily the case.

SCOTUS has recently and consistently ruled that the govt can't prohibit law abiding citizens from owning firearms. The 2nd Amendment exists and must be upheld unless it is repealed. States and municipalities where strict gun control that essentially bans some or all forms of gun ownership have seen those restrictions struck down in court as unconstitutional. Even when there are local majorities for gun control, or at least political climates that don't punish politicians for voting for anti gun legislation, the 2nd Amendment still must be upheld. No govt can actually outright ban guns without first having the states vote to change the constitution. That will probably never happen.

 Chongara wrote:

 AdeptSister wrote:
I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?

Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.

100% Americans own guns. That other 78% are just people who happen to live here, but they're not American.

If you have nothing relevant or non-snarky to add to the discussion, why don't you find your way out of this thread?

And as far as that 32% statistic? Where did Newsweek pull that from? Targeted poll? How big was the sampling? Who did they ask?

ski2060 wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

 AdeptSister wrote:
I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?

Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.

100% Americans own guns. That other 78% are just people who happen to live here, but they're not American.

If you have nothing relevant or non-snarky to add to the discussion, why don't you find your way out of this thread?

And as far as that 32% statistic? Where did Newsweek pull that from? Targeted poll? How big was the sampling? Who did they ask?

A quick search on google shows that about a third of Americans own guns, and that fraction used to be much higher. That's from several different polls and surveys, I don't think you'll have an easy time questioning the veracity of that statement.

 -Shrike- wrote:

ski2060 wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

 AdeptSister wrote:
I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?

Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.

100% Americans own guns. That other 78% are just people who happen to live here, but they're not American.

If you have nothing relevant or non-snarky to add to the discussion, why don't you find your way out of this thread?

And as far as that 32% statistic? Where did Newsweek pull that from? Targeted poll? How big was the sampling? Who did they ask?

A quick search on google shows that about a third of Americans own guns, and that fraction used to be much higher. That's from several different polls and surveys, I don't think you'll have an easy time questioning the veracity of that statement.

Depends on the polling methodology. Gun ownership varies from state to state and even within states. It's virtually impossible for a resident of New York City to legally own a gun however gun ownership in New York state is fairly common. Likewise, a state like New Jersey is both very populous and has strict gun control laws making it very difficult for residents to own guns whereas a state like Montana is less populous but gun ownership is very prevalent and state gun control laws are much more permissive. You could poll people from a group of states that creates a ownershp rate much higher than 32% and you could poll people from a group of states that gives you a much lower rate than 32% so the accuracy in terms of the country depends entirely on how the polling represents different states and regions of the country.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Sebster's huge-ass post a couple of posts above yours is a good start.

At least he admitted that reducing the number of firearms in Australia had little impact on crime, and it is quite interesting that after the government buy back and regulations that firearm ownership increased to close to pre-ban levels;
http://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-reloads-as-gun-amnesties-fail-to-cut-arms-20130113-2cnnq.html

As far as using suicide as a metric for infringing on gun rights the following countries with strict gun control rank above the United States;
- South Korea
- Japan
- Finland
- Belgium
- Iceland
The US ranks at number 50 with 12.1 per 100,000 people. Even if we take the CDC's figure of 13 per 100,000 that is 0.00013%. Suicide by firearm (which I object to being classified as gun violence) accounts for around half of those deaths, or 0.00007%. Without wanting to seem that I am minimizing the loss that these families have suffered that is statistically speaking insignificant.

 Ashiraya wrote:
That the US would resist gun restrictions simply through inertia (like Vaktathi says) doesn't defend the status quo to me. All it does is making the problem take longer to solve; it does not make the problem less problematic.

The claim, as always, seems to be that guns are the problem - and there is usually little to no evidence of this offered. The overwhelming majority of guns are owned without being used in suicide, the commission of a crime, or any other nefarious purpose.

Prestor Jon wrote:
While a murder rate of 4.5 is higher than other nations, the US has always had a higher murder rate than other Western nations. Due in large part to the fundamental societal differences that set the USA apart from other Western countries. Having a relatively high murder rate isn't a recent phenomenon and the current rate is the lowest it's been in modern history.

This argument just doesn't work once you actually know about other countries. The US doesn't have more crime, the rates of property and violent crime are on par with other developed countries. If the US was somehow culturally a more wild place, we'd see it in the overall crime rate. But the rate of property and violent crime in the US is on par with other developed countries. It's just murder where it sits way out on its own.

In 1960 the US murder rate was 5.1, in 1975 it was 9.6, in 1985 it was 8.0, in 1995 it was 8.2 and in 2005 it was 5.6. Today there are more firearms owned by private citizens than ever before in US history. More states have less restrictive concealed carry laws and more citizens have concealed carry permits than ever. The firearms industry makes more money than ever. Yet the murder rate is half of what it was 20 years ago and has steadily declined for decades. The proliferation of firearms ownership in the US hasn't caused an increase in murder rates, that's an established fact.

Once again, the decline in the murder rate in the US tracks with other developed countries, where improvements in living standards, education and policing are the major factors. None of that changes anything at all with the basic reality that if the US had far fewer guns the murder rate would be much closer to other developed countries.

Neither should the fact that a country, deliberately founded to be different than Europe and other Western nations, is still fundamentally different from other Western nations today in both positive and negative ways. Other people can disagree with or disapprove of our the ways in which our society differs but the majority of the people who live here are happy with it the way it is and it is unlikely to undergo drastic changes anytime soon.

Absolutely, and this is a really good argument for guns. So people should stick to that argument and similar ones, and stop with the really gakky nonsense stats that pretend gun proliferation doesn't lead to increased murder.


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 Chongara wrote:

 AdeptSister wrote:
I am not sure the majority here are happy with the status quo. Wasn't there majority support for a universal background check?

Also, according to Newsweek, only 32% of Americans own a gun or live with someone that does.

100% Americans own guns. That other 78% are just people who happen to live here, but they're not American.

America - We're so America there's 110% of us


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Relapse wrote:
Neither does any benifit from alcohol outweigh the risk and social damage it causes, but there ya go.

Clearly you're going to the wrong parties.

That's not just a joke, by the way, I am saying that there's a whole lot of social benefit from alcohol - it helps a lot of people have a whole lot of fun.

And the same can be argued for guns, of course.


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Prestor Jon wrote:
Depends on the polling methodology. Gun ownership varies from state to state and even within states. It's virtually impossible for a resident of New York City to legally own a gun however gun ownership in New York state is fairly common. Likewise, a state like New Jersey is both very populous and has strict gun control laws making it very difficult for residents to own guns whereas a state like Montana is less populous but gun ownership is very prevalent and state gun control laws are much more permissive.

That's why you weight respondents against state populations. I don't know how you couldn't have figured that out for yourself. I mean, polling is complex and subjective but not because it's hard to balance against state populations.

And the figure showing about a third of homes in the US having a gun is hardly a new figure, that number has been pretty consistent across polls for a long time now.


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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
At least he admitted that reducing the number of firearms in Australia had little impact on crime

'At least he admitted'... wow.

Anyhow, I'll expand on this in the hope that you are genuinely attempting to debate and discuss. The stricter gun laws in Australia had little effect because gun murder in Australia was very small anyway. There was about 300 murders in Australia, and firearm murders halved from around 20 to around 10 each year. That isn't going to show up as much effect on the overall murder rate, and be swamped by the overall trend in the murder rate caused by other factors.

The difference in the US is that guns are used in about 2/3 of murders, a much higher proportion out of a much higher total figure of 12,000 to 14,000 pa. If there was some magical way that a US gun ban could wipe the country clean of guns, and it had a similar impact on the number of firearm murders as Australia, you'd see gun murders go from 8,000 to 4,000, and the total murder rate drop from 12,000 to 8,000. Which would be a massive change.


At which point we move on to a polite request to please read the articles that you link to.

"He said that because of law changes, the new guns were not military-style semi-automatics, which were banned and surrendered after Port Arthur, and that handguns were now harder to import into Australia." The weapons that were banned and handed in at the amnesty are still banned, and still barely seen in the country.

Which means the point you tried to make was completely rejected by the article.


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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
The claim, as always, seems to be that guns are the problem - and there is usually little to no evidence of this offered. The overwhelming majority of guns are owned without being used in suicide, the commission of a crime, or any other nefarious purpose.

And now we're at the tactic of ignoring the evidence when presented, and then complaining that no evidence has been given.



It's right fething there. Accept it, fit it into your worldview, and fething move on. Cigarettes cause cancer, and gun proliferation increases the murder rate. You can build all kinds of reasonable arguments in spite of those realities, but you can't deny the realities themselves.

The "we know guns increase the murder rate, and as a society are OK with that, even though we like to pretend otherwise" is probably the most honest summary.

After all, we already know that generally we're hypocrites as far as what our stated public policy vs what we're actually willing to enact. We know that as a nation with an obesity epidemic, we need to make some noises about our nationwide devotion to all things deep fried, but if a public figure (like Michelle Obama or the NY governor, whats his name) tries to actually make it into policy, people lose their gak. We claim that we hate attack ads in politics, but they overwhelmingly work, we claim we hate how our goivernment is always gridlocked, and then elect people who honestly promise on the campaign trail to consider doing exactly that. We say we hate abortions, but also demonize and slash benefits for low income people who can't afford the kids they already have. Look at the ACA, and common core, and so on. As a nation we love to bemoan our problems and simultaneously protest against any reforms to address them.

 sebster wrote:

And now we're at the tactic of ignoring the evidence when presented, and then complaining that no evidence has been given.



It's right fething there. Accept it, fit it into your worldview, and fething move on.

Your graphic seems to be missing some vital information, namely what is it actually meant to show

 sebster wrote:
Cigarettes cause cancer, and gun proliferation increases the murder rate. You can build all kinds of reasonable arguments in spite of those realities, but you can't deny the realities themselves.

That was an absolutely beautiful false equivalence between cigarettes and guns.

But lets look at this reality that seems to be hampering those reasonable arguments of gun owners shall we?

Gun ownership has been increasing for a protracted period of time


Given that "gun proliferation increases the murder rate" surely there must be some correlation with murders, and at the very least we should see an increase, right?

Well, look at that. Reality says that gun proliferation does not in fact increase the murder rate



Lets look at some more breakdown of the numbers. This shows us the homicide rate based on city.

Overall number of gun murders:

1. Los Angeles.......................1,141

2. Chicago..............................1,139

3. New York.............................1,101

4. Philadelphia...........................729

5. Houston..................................701

6. Detroit.....................................686

7. Miami.......................................594

8. Dallas......................................469

9. Washington.............................440

10. San Francisco......................439

That certainly puts a fly in the ointment that "gun proliferation increases the murder rate". The top 2 are cities that have incredibly strict gun control laws. The same for at least half of the table. Surely if "gun proliferation increases the murder rate" we would see that the cities with the strongest gun control measures would be the safest.


Maybe we should look internationally. After all the US ranks number 1 in the world for gun ownership, and if "gun proliferation increases the murder rate" then it should be pretty close to the top internationally, right? No. Barely in the top 100;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country


Maybe we should look at another country, maybe that will tell us another story. Lets look at Australia


Ok, so after the gun buy back we see that homicides did decline.... 8 years later. What makes this more interesting is that after the buy back gunownership increased to it's pre-ban levels - http://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-reloads-as-gun-amnesties-fail-to-cut-arms-20130113-2cnnq.html
Using your "gun proliferation increases the murder rate" then surely this would mean that if the level of gun ownership remained static that the homicide rate should also. But it decreased instead.


Looks like gun proliferation does not increase the murder rate. Accept it, fit it into your worldview, and kindly move on