This past week in the US there have been several stories about people who were shot after ringing a doorbell or pulling into someone's driveway. Reducing the number of guns means that these people would not be able to enact this type of senseless violence.
It would also certainly cut down on the numbers of toddlers shooting their siblings.
The notion that taking away legal guns from legal gun owners will somehow reduce illegal violence is about as absurd as outlawing drugs.
People who want to do illegal drugs have had zero problems acquiring them, despite near infinite resources plowed into stopping them by governments at all levels.
Most people gleefully chant "The war on drugs has failed"...yet, "The war on guns" will somehow succeed?
This does stand in contrast to other nations not having the problem to the degree that we do.
And... really, any other evidence. It is illegal for you to build and detonate a bomb in the city. Not shockingly, we have few incidents of this happening. Far fewer than random gun violence in places you are allowed to carry guns.
Heck, just set realistic goals here. We make it illegal to drive without a seatbelt, and have largely succeeded in getting folks to wear a belt while in a car. Something far far easier to just not do than the active "seek out an illegal gun" idea that you posit would continue to be a thing.
We control fireworks more readily than we do guns. Again, no surprise that we have far fewer counts of incidents with fireworks. And again, also no surprise it isn't zero.
> It is illegal for you to build and detonate a bomb in the city
It is illegal to kill someone, even without a gun, under most circumstances. Perhaps we should make it double-illegal?
> Far fewer than random gun violence in places you are allowed to carry guns
This is false. Most gun violence does not occur from legal gun owners, or in places allowing concealed or overt carry.
No, most gun violence occurs with illegal guns by people committing crimes.
There is no realistic way for you or anyone to take away all of the illegal guns in America. Therefore, any proposed gun ban solely impacts legal gun owners - which statistically are not the problem. It sure sounds good though...
You really don't seem to be arguing in good faith. If it is already "illegal to kill someone" and we shouldn't "make it double-illegal", then we don't need vehicular manslaughter laws, either. For that matter, why have any of the regulations on safely operating anything. After all, it would be illegal for the worst case already? Why restrict sales of ingredients that can make meth? Why regulate anything?
And how is it false that we have more random gun violence than bombing? I can list, this week, more than 1 place where a legal gun owner killed someone. It is famously in the news right now. When is the last time we had a random bomb in a city here?
I haven't even proposed taking away all guns. Nobody gives a shit about most hunting weapons. Nor do they care about any properly held weapons with responsible care and protections.
And here's the issue then. What anti-gun advocates argue are weapons not good for hunting is misguided. Additionally, it doesn't matter if a gun was designed to hunt or not - the gun is an inanimate object.
People like to discuss banning AR-15's all day, failing to realize just how many similar-but-not-AR-15's model rifles exist out there, most of which fire the same cartridge too. No, but that one particular model is the problem because it says "AR-15" on the side (most don't even say that btw).
California already tried this and failed. California banned certain model rifles by name. Famously it banned "Colt AR-15" rifles... well guess what, people just bought S&W AR-15's instead. Ban the word "AR-15" and people will just buy "AR-16"s, or "NOT-15"s, or whatever. It's an impossible thing to ban.
It apparently doesn't matter than handguns kill the most people... those scary black AR-15's we see on movies are clearly the problem. After all, the bullet explodes and ruins the meat!
The anti-gun debate is not grounded in facts or reality - which is why anti-gun proponents make no headway (thankfully).
> And how is it false that we have more random gun violence than bombing?
People rarely seek to indiscriminately kill or maim large numbers of people - which is what a bomb does. Your mass shootings are super rare events.
Not long ago, bombs were going off with a near cadence all across the US, mostly from political extremists. Why did the bombing stop? Was it because we made bombs illegal? Of course not, blowing people and buildings up was already illegal.
Nobody is hunting with handguns or high powered rifles with high capacity magazines. Back when I did bird hunt, the entire community would jump on any fool that fired more than the allowed shells in a gun in rapid fire. It is obvious when it happens, and hilarious with how regulated guns actually are in hunting communities.
So, I reiterate. Nobody gives a shit about those. They are instead trotted out as a straw man to silence regulation of weapons.
I'm a little confused by your angle at this point, honest. Gun regulation should go after high capacity items and hand guns. After that, reckless regard to care and storage of munitions. Could probably move to control of the ammunition, as I can think of frightening few reasons for folks to have hollow point or incendiary rounds? Unsure that would make any real impact. Controlling handguns, though, is clearly something that should be done. It sounds like you agree there? Why sideline it with talking about how people are talking about AR-15s inaccurately? You literally brought that into this conversation.
If you want to know why bombing has gotten less, btw. It almost certainly went with more regulation of the ingredients that go into bombs. If you buy a lot of the ingredients that go into TNT, expect you will be rightfully checked up on.
I don't know what you're considering "high powered", but hunting rifles actually tend to be on the larger caliber side of things. If you're shooting a large mammal, using something like a 22 is just unnecessary cruelty. You want a round that will kill as fast as possible, so .338 in, .30-06 or 7.62 mm are the calibers of choice. If you're talking about .50 BMG as "high powered", then lucky for you, "high powered" rifles are almost never used in crime. They're just too expensive. In the few cases that they were used, I can't find a case where the "high powered" nature of it was actually relevant.
And I have the exact opposite point of view with regard to HP rounds. If we're talking handguns, we're talking self defense, and in self defense situations, the only rounds you want are hollow point. Because they're designed to flatten out on impact, they go through a lot fewer walls, ceilings, and home invaders, making the shooter far less likely to accidentally over-penetrate into their family or neighbors. Using full metal jacket for home defense is putting everybody else at excessive risk.
Incendiary rounds are for fun, and little else. They look scary, but they don't really have any real effect.
This kind of illustrates one of the big issues with firearms discourse in the US: people who like having guns tend to know a lot about them, and take for granted that people have that same knowledge, neglecting the fact that there's a whole other group of people who know next to nothing about them. Then the people who know next to nothing about firearms propose gun legislation which is just baffling to anyone who knows anything about guns, like banning specific models of firearm, or certain ergonomic features, or banning silencers/suppressors (this isn't Goldeneye, they just make it less hearing damagingly loud to shoot).
I'm almost swayed by the animal cruelty argument, at the same time, the best hunters I know are all bow hunters. Such that, yes, it will be harder; but hunting isn't supposed to be easy.
Guns are largely fun for most that have them. Little else. Such that I don't think that changes things.
I should note that I've probably owned more guns than makes sense. Had friends with desert eagles. There is basically no reason for any high school age kid to have access to the kind of crap I had access to. It isn't so much ignorance as flat disregard for the bullshit reasons so many pro gun folks put forth. Including here. Your "need this for self defense" is a large part of the reason folks "need them for self defense." It is circular at best, and you can only make it work by poisoning the conversation with pulling in hunting.
So, please, play the scenario out. You take away all the legal guns... now what? Violence ends? Right? Right?
What's the plan for taking away all the illegal guns? What's the plan to protect citizens that are now disarmed?
Why don't we just focus on taking away all the illegal guns? Oh, right... we have been... for 89 years - yet there's more illegal guns on the streets today than in 1934. What a shock...
Kind of like how there's more drugs readily available to average citizens than before the "war on drugs" started. It's literally an impossible task... have you seen the homemade guns in countries with outright bans? Or worse, illegally imported automatic firearms. Regular Joe - no gun. Criminal Joe, full auto!
People like to point at Prohibition as evidence an outright ban of Drugs can never work. Yet, it's different with guns somehow?
You're looking at an infected wound and deciding the appropriate treatment is duct tape.
Why duct tape? Because you haven't bothered to even learn rudimentary medical knowledge but are a self-proclaimed expert. Duct tape holds things together, so why not? Banning guns means no gun violence, right? Why don't we just make it illegal to hurt or kill people? It's already illegal? Ok, make it double-illegal, that'll show them!
At what point did I propose taking away "all legal guns?"
I have put forth regulating all guns. But, it doesn't take an active imagination to see that regulation is not a total banning/taking away. We still have cats, after all.
Edit: leaving cats, for obvious reasons. I meant cars.
> high powered rifles with high capacity magazines
And you'd be wrong with this assertion again, because the definition of "high powered" and "high capacity" are vastly different for your anti-gun advocates versus reality.
A .223 Remington cartridge is not "high powered". A 20 round magazine was what the gun was designed for, making that the standard capacity magazine, not 10 rounds like some advocate for.
A .50 BMG could be considered "high powered" - and it's banned in California. However, in California you can purchase .416 Barret, which is even more effective at range than .50 BMG - and it's perfectly legal. Make sense out of that one...
> frightening few reasons for folks to have hollow point or incendiary rounds
This is a statement made out of ignorance. It's all about the energy transferred into the target. A HP bullet is designed to transfer as much energy into the target as possible to prevent over-penetration (where you shoot someone through a wall accidentally, for instance) and can be considered a safety-feature for defense. You really do not want a reality where people are forced to use FMJ for self defense...
> If you buy a lot of the ingredients that go into TNT, expect you will be rightfully checked up on.
Look up how to make Anfo. It's not difficult, and the components are not regulated. The use, however, is regulated, ie. it's illegal to make a bomb and blow people up.
> Back when I did bird hunt, the entire community would jump on any fool that fired more than the allowed shells in a gun in rapid fire
Sport hunting is akin to golf. There are rules for etiquette and "fairness" reasons, even if that seems silly to an outsider. Additionally, at an established gun range, few allow rapid fire unless you are a member. This is for safety reasons, nothing else. Joe walking in off the street with zero firearms training should not be mag-dumping for obvious reasons.
> Nobody is hunting with handguns
There's an entire community of folks who do just that.
We cannot have productive conversations about gun control until anti-gun advocates educate themselves and refrain from abusing and redefining established words.
I'm not wrong, you are just looking to nitpick your way to success here. You are the one poisoning the conversation with supposed mistakes and nitpicks. I could as easily nitpick that arsenic is perfectly fine to feed to people, so that we should not have laws against poisoning.
The statement on hollow and incendiary isn't ignorance, it is somewhat flat disbelief that it is typically successful at the things you put forth. I'm well aware of the reasons to try and use them. That said, I'm also well aware that that is never what is accomplished with them. Though, again, I had a question mark on that sentence as I really don't care too much about those. They are, for all practical purposes a side show.
And I want you to reread the "that is for safety reasons, nothing else." What the flying fuck do you think we are talking about? Gun safety regulation. Fucking period.
It's a lot like arguing with a child about why the sky is blue. Facts and realities don't apply.
Your comments about HP bullets, and particularly incendiary munitions (lol) are absurd and uninformed. But it doesn't matter, you will not educate yourself on the topic no matter how wrong you may be, and therefore we cannot have a productive conversation regarding gun control.
The "I fired a gun once, and now I'm an expert" crowd is exhausting. You've spent hundreds of words here, in public, clearly demonstrating your staggeringly poor command of this topic.
And gun control advocates always ask, why has no progress been made? Because the conversation is not being held from a rational position.
I find your insistence that you are the rational one laughable, at best. Pedantic, to the extreme, I would give you. Rational? Nope. Children desperately hanging on to their toys. Everyone's health be damned.
On the off chance you come back to this. I would like to apologize for how rude I think I was to the end there. You are clearly prepared with talking points, and this is not a conversation I want to devote too much time to. That is no reason for me to be rude when I am engaged. Apologies.
I was speaking specifically of people getting shot for something like knocking on the door of the wrong house. That's a tiny minority of gun-related deaths and not something anyone really needs to worry about any more than they worry about getting in their car or crossing the street every day.
Because all laws and bans are tradeoffs. By banning something that doesn't have a significant effect you might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
How many lives are saved and traumas avoided through people's ability to defend themselves with guns? If that number is higher than the number of toddler accidents, gun ban would effectively cause an increase in PTSD and deaths.
P.S.: just to clarify, by "significant" I mean significant in a statistical sense of not being insignificant (very close to zero, noise-level), not "majority".
That's a fair point. I took the premise to be that there was already a higher trauma rate in the US based on the fact that there is so apparently so much medication given out for trauma related issues compared to other countries. This had been suggested above but I didn't look into it further.
> How many lives are saved and traumas avoided through people's ability to defend themselves with guns
Self defence with guns sounds pretty traumatising for all involved to be fair.
I'm not a psychologist, but intuitively, most trauma seem to have an element of helplessness in them. Being able to defend yourself and your loved ones with guns would therefore cause less trauma than having to wait for police to come, or just being hurt/seeing a loved one
hurt/murdered in front of you.
Still, we're stepping deep into the speculation area here, so I won't stand behind this argument very strongly.
The act of committing violence against another person with a weapon itself is traumatic. Most people can't simply turn off their instinct for empathy and kill another person in cold blood simply because the other is an "enemy," and not suffer psychological consequences, possibly even PTSD. Even police officers, professional killers that they are, have to go through mandatory counseling and assessment after a shooting.
Realistically, your argument isn't to lessen trauma, but to simply normalize it. Which is exactly what American culture already does.
> Realistically, your argument isn't to lessen trauma, but to simply normalize it. Which is exactly what American culture already does
No, actually, my argument is that killing or injuring a person in self-defense is less traumatic than being helpless while getting assaulted.
Besides, trauma is relative - "normalizing" trauma is another way of saying "being desensitised" - which is exactly the process therapy itself employs to help people relieve the effects of it.
There's also different levels of trauma involved in the kind of assault you're likelyt to come up against. Being held up at gunpoint is something I can't imagine happening in my life.
Oddly, I've once had a dream that I was being held at gunpoint.
A person unknown to me was holding a submachine gun, and I could literally feel the muscles tensing in my stomach, where the gun was pointed at, anticipating the pain of a bullet. It was one of the most uncomfortable and frightening things I've felt in my life, so much that I still remember the dream quite vividly.
I assume being held at gunpoint in real life would be even more frightening.
It’s not clear that the two aren’t one and the same. MDMA treatments for PTSD are not ongoing medications. Generally they are just 3 sessions of assisted therapy producing a huge reduction in symptoms.
If we can reduce the level of trauma and fear in society, we can reduce associated behaviors.
None of the above "gun violence"/"senseless violence" things given as reasons for gun control happen to my family on a regular basis either. By your logic I should question the choice of gun control .
It would also certainly cut down on the numbers of toddlers shooting their siblings.