Gun Control

In another thread about home grown terrorist, someone mentioned gun control as a way of stopping terrorist acts in our nation. By gun control they meant outlawing guns. The author mentioned working on the root causes of gun violence.

so my question is, what would be more effective, outlawing certain guns OR finding the causes of gun violence and solving those.

:banghead:

enjoy:

The Gungeon

The guns are just the tools. Violent people will use any tool at their disposal. Lack of guns will not stop them or even slow them down. The root problem is violence in our society.

Consider this. I have several guns. There is some statistical likelyhood that I will kill someone. If you give me 100 more guns will I be any more or less likely to kill someone? What if I have no gun at all, just a knife or a crowbar or a good sized chunk of 2x4 and a rage to kill?

However neither is even remotely achievable without changing human nature and human knowledge. Guns don't take much more wherewithal to make than alcohol, and less than some designer drugs. How's banning them working? Let alone the 270 million+ easily concealable guns we already have. Solving the causes of gun violence? Sure all you have to do is outlaw poverty, greed, anger, mental instability and (mostly) male hormones. Piece of cake.

It's a tired cliché but very apt for your question. A gun is a tool. It's a relatively simple tool. To end guns is to end the knowledge to make simple tools. To end gun violence is to end violent tendencies from human nature.

So what CAN we do? A little bit of both perhaps. We can license and register guns and end unregistered private legal transactions. There will still be illegal ones of course, but it's better than nothing. We can punish very severely violent illegal use of guns instead of worrying about what kind of bayonet lug or folding stock they have, and use the prison spaces of non-violent dope offenders for those who transgress. Use a gun except in self defense or sport? Mandatory 25 years no parole. That might help. We can increase funding for early child care and education and job programs for those at greater risk of poverty. That investment pays off many times in lack of crime and prison costs.

But really all we are talking about is ways to reduce, and perhaps not even then by a huge margin. Crime is in our nature. Violence is in our nature. Guns are available to help us in both.

so short of collecting all the seman from men for reproductive purposes and then aborting all male babies maybe take the following steps:

give those in the innercity something to do in the evening. maybe like clinton proposed and have midnight basketball (busy hands are less likely to committ crimes)

job programs, early child care and education programs

So we'd have to selectively cull daughters too.

Yeah I think I like the job programs, education and child care ideas better too now I think about it...

saddly, that was then, this is now.

less crime and violence than we in the U.S. do. I can't believe their "nature" is that different from ours. Certainly, they have anger, male hormones, greed and mental instability to some degree or other. And they have the social programs you speak about but also no proliferation of guns. So there is your empirical evidence.

But tell me, do you think you are safer in say, Stockholm than in Houston?

Because I don't particularly care if I am clubbed or stabbed or shot. And I'm generally armed.

And you have to remember that the better gun control=less crime necessitates very selective examples. For every Japan there is a South Africa or Russia with very strong gun control and horrible violence. there's also a Switzerland with very low crime and proliferation of guns. It's not like there's a causal link or even a strong correlation.

Surely for a start you realize that Stockholm enjoys far better success than Houston in everything else I listed - child care, educational opportunities, health care protection against poverty and so on. They also have lower drug use, less ethnic "ghettoization" and more social cohesion.

If you poured a million guns into Stockholm I don;t think crime would go up all that much. Maybe some crimes of passion would be more fatal than bodily harm at most. If you took a million guns from Houston I don;t think crime would go down all that much either except in reverse analogy - the thugs would still be thugs, the drugs and hopelessness and poverty would still breed violence. It would be bats and knives and slowly the guns would come back anyway.

It's not that simple. You can't isolate any effect of guns alone on crime without duplicating all the other societal factors, and that's not possible.

Let's think of another example perhaps. Washington DC has the toughest gun laws in the country, de facto banning civilian gun ownership with very few exceptions. Vermont allows pretty much anyone to carry concealed or otherwise with no permit. Where would YOU feel safer?

It's not like "Vermont carry" isn't a well known shorthand that turns up about 200,000 hits on google or anything but hey since you asked...

There are numerous "pro" gun sites with better info but ratyher than be accused of a biased source....

http://www.bradycampaign.org/legislation/state/viewstate.php?st=vt



NOW how about addressing the point instead?

However, the makeup of a (very) rural state as opposed to a large city is not a good analogy. Remember I was comparing Stockholm to Houston. That is where I placed the issue. You moved the placement elsewhere.

Also, regarding whatyou said about European countries with generous social programs, while I agree that such an arrangement is crucial to a peaceful society, it is also true that, except for Switzerland, most western European nations do not allow a proliferation of guns. If social programs completely took care of the problem, why are restrictions on guns needed at all?

Especially since the UK saw not a decrease but an increase in violent crime after its nigh total gun ban.

I don;t want to puch a causal argument that the gun ban drove the increase at all - but it obviously didn't do the reverse either. That, surely, is the point.

And I compared two locations which are not identical. So did you> Stockholm is not Houston for a whole range of reasons, and it is absolutely iompossible to isolate the impact of just one of them - difference in gun regulations. The whole issue comes down to those two points: A) you can't compare places based on one criterion unless they only differ on one B)gun restrictions of even the most draconian kind (UK and DC) have NEVER been demonstrated to reduce violent crime significantly from the levels before the bans.

Even the UN has ranked the US down at 24# on their own list.

Enough with the propoganda, okay? With their Republican background, The Brady bunch vomits too much of this BS out as it is, they don't need your help.


Question for YOU: do you think you are safer in say,
Stockholm than in Washington, DC?

hint: DC has the strictest gunlaws in this nation, yet has a higher murder rate than some entire states that allow guns.

Just going a little "socratic" on you...

"The American people, for reasons passing understanding, are unable to relate guns to gun-related crime." - President Andrew Shepard, in 'The American President'.

Let me put it this way: Why should we be so concerned with other countries getting nuclear weapons? Don't they have a right to protect themselves? What if someone tries to break into their country in the middle of the night? Won't they need them then to protect their families and their property? Can't we trust them to use nukes responsibly? If we outlaw nukes, only outlaws will have them, right?

See where I'm going here?

and unfortunately it's "nowhere relevant" and even if it were only argues that we should keep our nose out of other countries' nuclear plans or lack thereof.

unless you are assuming anyone in favor of civilian gun ownership must as a matter of 100% correlation believe in verye aspect of US foreign policy....

of guns, will stop them from getting them if they want to? Most guns a terrorist would be interested in (automatic assault rifles) are already highly restricted and controlled. Do you think it will stop a terrorist from getting any? We don't even seal our borders. DO you think it will stop them from murdering us in some other way? They killed over 3000 on 9/11 without firing a shot.

When they start targeting our schools, is there anything anyone there can do to stop it? Will "gun free" zones protect our kids? Will "gun free zones" keep ANY bad guys away?


Prohibition put a complete ban on alcohol, and the use of it INCREASED, as well as the criminal element associated with it and violent crime rates. Has the war on drugs been overly effective? Are there no drug users now? No drug-related crime? Why would anyone think a gun ban would be effective?

What is reasonable about making sure only the state and the govts are armed? They are not duty-bound to protect you. The police at the last mall (gun free zone) shooting took 6 MINUTES to respond; will having 911 on your cell phone protect you?

BTW, what is reasonable about disarming, or otherwise infringing on the secured right of, 98.88% of us when only .12% will commit a crime with a gun? There is NO correlation between guns/gun control and violent crime rates - crime rates go up, crime rates go down (to real low just a couple years ago), despite the amount of guns, shall issue CCW, &c. steadily increasing, the expriration of the useless AW ban etc.


A 1999 study in New Haven says:

A large percentage of gun violence offenders and victims were 15-21 years of age.
Most gun offenders had serious criminal histories.
One fifth of gun offenders had been arrested for a prior gun offense, and three-fifths had a history of drug charges.
Over one third of the gun offenders were on probation at the time of the new gun-related offense.
Approximately one-third of offenders or victims associated with murders and armed assaults were members of neighborhood "groups" believed to be involved in other illegal activities.


There is a reason the 2nd amendment explicitly and absolutley secured the right for the people - so THEY can protect the lives & liberties of themselves and their loved ones. Besides being your duty to be armed (thanks to the Militia clause is Article 1,S8) for the common defence, it makes GREAT sense personally as well!

With over 1.4 MILLION violent crimes in this country, and only about 15-20% being "gun related", it is about time everyone wake up and realize GUNS AIN'T THE PROBLEM!!