GUNS!

[Captain Nemo]

I think I made such a topic in the past somewhere but can't find it.

So should guns be allowed? background check? no guns at all? The debate seems to resurface whenever there's a new massacre so thought I'd see if anyone could explain to me why it's still so easy to buy weapons in USA?

John Oliver from the daily show made this hilarious bit on guns that I found really good and funny btw. Can someone pro-guns comment on this? It's a 3 piece bit but just watch first one and if u like it search for the other 2 parts.

[Arntzen]

LMAO that's just spot on. I wonder if the American politician is fake or not tho. I can't see him getting any votes..
I loved that he "turned it around" to crack and eventually had to become "pro" legalizing crack just cause people can still get crack if they really want it.... Also calling Australia another planet without humans etc, just priceless!

[Captain Nemo]

They're always real. But wasn't he a lobbyist? Watch episode 2 and 3 if u liked it

[Arntzen]

Yeah I watched all 3 in one go. Great stuff! I'm also curious if there is any valid arguments against gun control.

[Ghost]

Not saying I take either side but it's hard to come up with counter arguments when someone puts you on the spot. That old guy probably hasn't really thought about making counter arguments since he's so heavily biased against gun control that he just says whatever basic things he knows. Arguing against an opponent dumber than yourself will always put the argument in your favor.

Think about it. One of the points was: more gun control -> less guns -> less gun violence. I could easily make this point: more gun control -> less guns -> less guns for law abiding citizens, same amount of guns for outlaws -> same amount of gun violence.

They also made a comparison to Australia. Well the US has almost 14 times more people so your statistics have to be adjusted. New York, the largest city in the US, is 28 times more dense than Sydney, the largest city in Australia. These are just examples of numbers you might have to crunch when making a comparison. I could make the argument that even with the same laws in the US as in Australia, an act of gun violence is still 28 times more likely in New York than in Sydney.

There's also a large focus on banning "assault weapons" because they make it easier to kill people. Of the 12 deadliest shootings in the U.S. "assault weapons" were only used in 2 of them. So for the other 10 incidents, those guys must have been real pros right? Only 3 percent of guns destroyed in Victoria (Australian state) after the gun ban mentioned in the video were classified as "assault weapons".

The US as a whole has a large pro-gun following because we have a lot of people that hunt and target shoot for sport. Some hunt for a living in rural areas. These people don't believe they should be punished for a few maniacs running around killing people.

Another reason people don't think gun control is effective is because you can buy legally in a state with little gun control and traffick it into another state. A country-wide ban would help but still it would be easy to bring in banned weapons just like drugs. Perhaps it would prevent some mass shootings by individuals since it would but harder to obtain a gun. But, gun violence will still be very prevalent in the gang world because criminals will use their connections to get whatever they want. Just a wild guess, but I think more innocent people die from gang violence than from mass shootings. Focus on all areas of gun violence and not just the headline news stories.

I'm not going to waste time making counter arguments for my fake counter arguments. You guys can do that on your own and I really won't get offended. I don't own a gun, I don't really have any plans to. I know a lot of people that own guns and they're very passionate about them. They could probably make a better argument than that old fart. I could care less. Looking for opinions on American gun control on the Save-EE forums probably won't get you very far. Save-EE has a lot of people from outside of the US and generally most countries are more liberal (read: have more gun control) than the US.

[Captain Nemo]

Not saying I take either side but it's hard to come up with counter arguments when someone puts you on the spot. That old guy probably hasn't really thought about making counter arguments since he's so heavily biased against gun control that he just says whatever basic things he knows. Arguing against an opponent dumber than yourself will always put the argument in your favor.

Yes thats why it becomes funny. But I agree

Think about it. One of the points was: more gun control -> less guns -> less gun violence. I could easily make this point: more gun control -> less guns -> less guns for law abiding citizens, same amount of guns for outlaws -> same amount of gun violence.

It's not only hardcore criminals that cause gun violence. I don't have alot of examples cause I don't listen to your news, but I heard a bit about that crazy guy who killed a number of people in the navy or something and he went to buy a gun like just before it happened. I'd reckon he wouldn't have done it if he couldn't just go buy a gun like that. Thats just one example Im sure there are many.

They also made a comparison to Australia. Well the US has almost 14 times more people so your statistics have to be adjusted. New York, the largest city in the US, is 28 times more dense than Sydney, the largest city in Australia. These are just examples of numbers you might have to crunch when making a comparison. I could make the argument that even with the same laws in the US as in Australia, an act of gun violence is still 28 times more likely in New York than in Sydney.

yeah but theres no reason to think it wouldn't decline in gun violence in USA just as much as it did in Australia. It didn't completely get rid of gun violence, but it did decline significantly.

The US as a whole has a large pro-gun following because we have a lot of people that hunt and target shoot for sport. Some hunt for a living in rural areas. These people don't believe they should be punished for a few maniacs running around killing people.

Not suggesting u should completely get rid of all types of guns. Just like in other countries u can still go hunting if u get a permit for a specific hunting weapon, and of course a thorough background check. I don't see this as an issue at all.

A country-wide ban would help but still it would be easy to bring in banned weapons just like drugs. Perhaps it would prevent some mass shootings by individuals since it would but harder to obtain a gun. But, gun violence will still be very prevalent in the gang world because criminals will use their connections to get whatever they want. Just a wild guess, but I think more innocent people die from gang violence than from mass shootings. Focus on all areas of gun violence and not just the headline news stories.

All types of gun violence decreased if I remember correctly, not just mass shootings. But there is a thing about mass shootings that they tend to happen on schools for some reason. It's alot more horrific than gang members shooting each other altho it is very sad when innocents get hit in the crossfire. But it did have effect on other types of gun violence.

I'm not going to waste time making counter arguments for my fake counter arguments. You guys can do that on your own and I really won't get offended. I don't own a gun, I don't really have any plans to. I know a lot of people that own guns and they're very passionate about them. They could probably make a better argument than that old fart. I could care less.

I thank you for your effort I actually seem to remember Omega being pro-gun so Im sorta waiting for him to make a reply.

[Icestorm2]

I don't care one way or the other personally. I rather just wish the issue was dropped or settled one way or the other so society could move on. The entire debate is simply a knee-jerk response to killing sprees as if they were entirely a by-product of the ability to purchase a firearm. The far more common forms of gun-related crime that generate all these jaw-dropping statistics don't generate much discussion. To the best of my knowledge, most of these criminals are using guns that were stolen or purchased illegally.

But right now, all the debate really does is obscure the real issue: why are people carrying out massacres of their fellow students and co-workers in the first place? Why are people killing themselves? Prohibiting firearms for private citizens will certainly make it harder for people to shoot themselves or massacre their neighbors, but that anger and desire to lash out will still be there and nobody wants to talk about that subject. And it's not like we're going to start talking about this if the gun issue is somehow resolved, either. Instead we're going to start arguing about how we can stop people from crashing their vehicles into crowds of people, or setting fires in crowded buildings, making bombs, and so on to infinity. Guns are simply the easiest outlet for people with these desires, but they're not the only one or the deadliest one.

You can't claim to have a solution for social problems like these if you don't understand the causes and underlying issues. This strategy of simply trying to deny people means to carry out their intentions is bound to fail because it can't anticipate everything a desperate and disaffected person will do.

[Captain Nemo]

Good point ice. I think you're totally right that if you want less crime, gunrelated or not, it will take ALOT more than just gun control. It's a massive undertaking and something that should have focus all the time especially on youngsters. I do think however, some of the gunrelated crime could be avoided with gun control and isn't it worth doing then? It's one small step to less crime, and an easy step even. It's just one small law.

[Omega]

I wouldn't say I'm pro gun, or anti gun, or whatever other terms someone might want to divide the debate into. I'm for rational, data-driven (so long as it is *quality* data) public policy, and this applies to guns as much as it applies to everything else. If I had to pick a "camp" to join, I'd say I lean ever so slightly to the "pro gun" camp, but in reality both camps have built a lot of their positions on terrible or non-existent data and tortured emotional reasoning, so it's hard to really identify too strongly with either (and part of this is the whole framing of the debate, not just that both "sides" have too many sacred cows).

The debate over guns is far too limited in my opinion, and needs to instead be discussed in a much broader frame, namely, "by what standards should we determine the degree of merit-based regulation on potentially dangerous objects and items, and is non-merit-based regulation ever acceptable?"

There's also the fact that most everyone isn't even remotely informed about the debate. This includes advocacy groups on both sides of the issue, and especially lawmakers that push or oppose new laws. Take for example, this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rGpykAX1fo

The person being interviewed wrote a law that, as one of the few key features of the legislation, defines a gun having a barrel shroud as something that might make it an "assault weapon" in combination with other features (and having a barrel shroud is equally weighted with all the other features). She doesn't know what a barrel shroud is, though, and she also doesn't know what a modular/collapsible stock is ("the shoulder thing that goes up"). So what is a barrel shroud? A barrel shroud is a covering attached to the barrel of a firearm, that partially or completely encircles the barrel which prevents operators from injuring themselves on a hot barrel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_shroud)". That's right, it's a safety feature, and a safety feature that in no conceivable way actually increases the lethality of a weapon. In fact, if we want to legislate based on low-probability incidents (more on this in a moment), such as the event that there's a mass shooter who happens to be using a rifle and someone gets close enough to wrestle for the gun, it would be much better if the gun had a barrel shroud, so the person wrestling for the gun isn't impeded by burning their hand(s) on a hot barrel. (Please note, this safety feature looks kind of "scary", leading a lot of pro-gunners to point out that assault weapon bans are really just intended to ban scary looking guns. This isn't even all that far off, as virtually all of the features included in the laws are largely cosmetic in nature, like a bayonet lug... unless you're concerned about say, bayonettings, which never seem to happen for some reason)

As for those low probability incidents, 1% of all guns used to kill police officers (note that this is explicitly referenced in the video) happen to fit the definition of an "assault rifle". To put that in perspective, 2% of guns used to kill police officers are the officer's own weapon. You could have double the effect by offering funds for police departments to purchase a better class of retention holster for their officers (prohibitively expensive to many departments), and extensive and regular training with respect to weapon retention (also something that officers don't get a lot of... after all, the vast majority of their job has nothing to do with using guns). This whole detour from merely mentioning barrel shrouds is a good illustration for how badly framed the debate is. The debate isn't about crime reduction, or death reduction. There isn't anything inherently worse about a murder by knife than a murder by gun (actually, being stabbed to death sounds worse, not like it matters), or a suicide from a shotgun versus suicide from jumping off the roof of a building (actually, in this case using the gun is probably preferable... less chance of injuring/killing anyone else).

As for what constitutes gun violence, in the United States in 2010, there were 31,076 total cases. 11,078 homicides (~1/3 of all cases), 19,392 suicides (~2/3 of all cases), and 606 accidents. With respect to accidents, as per the CDC's Injury Mortality Report, accidental poisonings are responsible for 17 times more accidental deaths than guns happen to be. Imagine if a fraction of the efforts of reducing accidental firearms deaths were put towards reducing accidental poisonings? Mandatory household chemical safe storage laws (including cap-locks, etc.), encouraging education about chemical safety as far as children go, making sure you know everywhere your child plays has their household chemicals stored safely. It's seems a bit of a silly analogy, but that's yet another symptom of how poorly framed the debate is. As another note regarding accidents, there is no breakdown of whether or not they occurred with legally owned guns or not, which would be quite interesting to see, as I doubt criminals who are already violating multiple state and federal laws by having a gun are likely to comply with more gun laws. With respect to suicides, as per the WHO, gun accessibility and suicide rate are entirely uncorrelated. Obviously, gun accessibility is a good predictor of committing suicide by gun, but the data suggest that it has *no effect* on the actual number of suicides. Are we interested in actually preventing net suicides, or preventing gun suicides? Based on all the laws intended to prevent gun suicides (which data suggest have had zero effect on gun suicides, even), and the utter neglect of improving the mental health system as well as social support networks in this country, it seems the answer is actually neither.

Homicides is an interesting metric, since 90% of all of those are committed by criminals, who cannot legally obtain a gun, and are violating multiple federal and state laws simply by possessing one (including a federal law that could send them to prison for 5+ years independent of anything else--just that is almost NEVER enforced, like most of all the other gun laws targeted at criminals, mainly due to systemic dysfunction of the justice system). The figure also lumps in justifiable homicides, so in the remaining ~1100 homicide cases, it would probably make sense to subtract those (I'm of course not aware of anyone actually doing this, though). After all including, for example, a guy who was shot to death, by the police, because he was charging them with a knife probably isn't something that more gun control laws will reduce the occurrence of (but something that say, having a mental health system that isn't garbage and actually trying to rehabilitate criminals might).

I don't have alot of examples cause I don't listen to your news, but I heard a bit about that crazy guy who killed a number of people in the navy or something and he went to buy a gun like just before it happened. I'd reckon he wouldn't have done it if he couldn't just go buy a gun like that. Thats just one example Im sure there are many.

First, it's obvious that this is a serious failure of our mental health system, just like so many of the other such cases. Improving the mental health system is something that would face little political opposition, and have lots of other benefits, yet virtually all of the focus every time is on the fact a gun was used.

Second, it's not like it's terribly difficult to obtain a gun illegally, and obviously, criminals don't undergo a background check before making a purchase or anything like that. Heck, it's not terribly difficult to manufacture a gun either, as pretty much anyone with access to basic shop tools can do it easily (there are plenty of areas in the world where people make perfectly functional guns using *hand tools*, even). Even if all guns were to be banned, and if all existing guns were confiscated/turned in (unlikely... look at Europe: http://www.examiner.com/article/those-p ... -you-think), and the flow of guns through borders into the United States could be stopped entirely (also unlikely, given we can't stop the flow of drugs or people), it seems unlikely that there would still be no demand for guns, and if there were a demand, I'm certain there would be criminal enterprises that ,ake and sell guns, and there are already plenty of criminal enterprises that have easy access to the equipment and skills needed to do so (like say, chop shops).

Third, it's not terribly difficult to kill people with things that aren't guns. Look at the Columbine shooters, who despite being only kids, manufactured a ton of pipe bombs that they placed around the school (and also, modified most of their weaponry themselves at home, using basic household tools), or the Colorado movie shooter guy (who built bombs in his apartment), or the Boston Marathon bombers (who built bombs using ordinary stuff, from instructions they got on the internet). Everything someone needs to build a bomb is not only cheap, but easy to get. Heck, mix together the right easily available chemicals and you could very easily gas people too (Chlorine gas, aka bertholite used in WW1, being the easiest... I mean, people sometimes die from it just because they mix together the wrong household chemicals). To say nothing about someone who has access to any well-stocked science labs (especially nanofabrication facilities). Or, even just arson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire).

[Ghost]

WOLVERINES!!!!!!!!!!

[Omega]

WOLVERINES!!!!!!!!!!

LOL

[Captain Nemo]

hmm well Omega so your point is that if u decrease gun violence (by gun laws) you will only increase other types of crimes?

I'd say I partly agree. I think in total you will decrease crime, but I also think a government buyback of all guns would be very expensive for such a small decrease in crime and there could possibly be other ways to do the same amount but for less. Although of course that will never happen. Adding a thorough background check doesn't have alot of drawbacks as I see it though.

Also I don't necessarily think it's a fail in the mental health care system. Of course it isn't perfect but at least in my country it's simply not possible to hold all mentally ill people (to that extent) in a closed facility. It's a serious liberty issue when you choose to lock up people based on their mental health status. If you're not 100% sure and within the laws chances are you are free to go, unless of course u got some kind of court sentence. But it will appear in your medical journal. Would be very easy with such a simple background check to deny such a person a gun. I think eventho the mental health care system could maybe catch 95% of the mentally ill (to that extent, who have been around such a facility) there would still be some freaks walking out of the facility who might just go completely crazy with a gun. And I think 95% these people are unlikely to be able to get a gun in any other way than buy it in a store.

[CusTomm_]

All this gun controll debate is just about economy imo. Of course a gun controll would reduce crime/homicides and massacres. Most other western countries got gun controll. 2010 in Germany there were 79 homicides including firearms. Even calculating this on the population of the US, there would only be about 301 homicides including a gun. I could probably compare this to most MEDC's and would come to the same conclusion. Second point: In most countries with gun controll, people are still allowed to hold a gun for hunting or self defense in special cases. So imo this is no argument at all.

And saying, that banning guns would result in a higher number of homicdes without a firearm is just speculation.

EDIT: I agree that gangs would get their weapons on a other way. But imo the point are school massacres or comparable situations. These massacres happen because its so ridiculously easy to get a gun. And tbh I dont know an other western country with that much massacres.