But we are already doing that.
Young drivers now need dozens of more hours to get their license than when I got mine.
I had to spend $1400 to upgrade my pool fences so people couldnt hop over them.
Ladders have weight guidance now.
Prescription drugs, especially addictive ones not only are tracked but have labels that identify them on bottles so you know what they are.
All of these have decreased deaths. Why not guns?
True, unavoidable accidents of the freak of nature kind are unfortunate, but must be accepted because theyâre unavoidable.
Anything else is unacceptable. But weâre going to accept it because statistically, we know it will happen. But we should continue to strive to reduce that unacceptable number, regardless of how high or low it is.
The purpose of guns answers your question as to why gun control is different than reducing the number of cars or pools or stairs or bathtubs comes up.
When a toddler kills someone with a gun, the gun fulfilled its purpose. No one is (or at least should be) surprised when a bullet is discharged from a loaded gun when someone pulls the trigger and the object or being that it is pointed at is impacted at high velocity with the projectile.
When pool manufacturers start advertising how many toddlers you can drown in a single pool and pool owners start intentionally trying to drown toddlers in their pools, Iâll start railing against pools.
Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have/had the backing of other countries and the homefield advantage. The US military also made significant strategic mistakes (even if they were considered diplomatically prudent). Invading Iraq at all would probably be a big one.
Sure, the same could happen here, but itâs not going to happen anytime soon. And all these post-apocalyptic fantasists hoarding their guns will have only made gun manufacturers more wealthy.
I donât consider such âsuccessâ to be possible. But that doesnât mean we shouldnât put effort towards reducing the number. In the least, the numbers we currently have are too many. Letâs get them down significantly and then discuss if we feel like thereâs more that we can do. Guns are a man-made problem. It should be a lot easier to solve than cancer or AIDS.
But let me ask you the opposite question that you asked me. How many gun deaths are unacceptable to you? You seem to be implying that you think the current number is acceptable. How many more before you think something would need to be done?
Young drivers now need dozens of more hours to get their license than when I got mine.
And you are connecting that to the decrease in car fatalitiesâŚhow? How much of that is due to the safer nature of cars instead?
And no, donât come back and tell me that that only means we need some equivalent of seat belts, air bags, and crumple zones for guns. Thatâs already done. Todayâs guns are far safer than those of 50 years ago. A modern handgun has three or four safety mechanisms in it already. Consequently, accidental gun deaths have been going down for years.
I had to spend $1400 to upgrade my pool fences so people couldnt hop over them.
And again: where is your statistical tie back to a benefit? More: $1,400 times the number of pools in your municipality equals� And what could that have been spent on instead, which would have saved more lives?
Meanwhile, guns have an equivalent to that already. Every new handgun sold in this country comes with a lock. Some even have two locks, one integrated into the firearm itself, and another separate from it. And if you want even more fences and locks, there is a thriving industry for that: safes of every size, shape, color⌠Gizmos galore.
Ladders have weight guidance now.
Iâm pretty sure collapse due to excessive weight isnât the primary risk factor for ladder use.
Labels and warnings are a reaction to a civil problem (i.e. too many customers suing the ladder maker over the customerâs own stupidity) rather than a rational reaction to a real safety risk.
Prescription drugsâŚlabelsâŚtracking
That ignores incorrect prescriptions, incorrect dosage, adverse drug interactions, and â on point here â suicide.
The medical establishment accidentally kills about 10 times more people annually than are killed in firearms accidents, yet there are fewer professions more restricted and regulated. Oh, and letâs not forget that these are professionals, being put up against a class of mostly amateurs on the gun deaths side. Weâd expect a higher level of incompetence.
All of these have decreased deaths. Why not guns?
Because weâve had 60 years of gun control, and weâre still talking about more, without the science to back it.
Gun control advocates like to point to Australia here. Huge gun restrictions enacted about 20 years ago, followed by a dip in crimeâŚexcept that crime was falling worldwide, and after you take that into account, Australiaâs drop in crime isnât as big as it should be.
Meanwhile, I can point to other countries that have high rates of gun ownership and low accident and crime rates, and still others that have massive restrictions and high crime.
The fact is that gun restrictions are a poor lever if your goal is to move these numbers.
I think we have a societal problem here, not a legal one. The thing is, societal problems are hard to fix, but passing yet another law is easy, especially in the wake of a tragedy.
Then donât pass gun control laws. Laws that would have prevented three friends of mine from dieing. And two from being a hairs breadth of killing loved ones. And two others blood I am sleeping over right now. Literally, not figuratively.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you suggesting that thereâs something ⌠unique about the American cultural experience? Because Australia is a great big fucking melting pot too.
Unless. Unless what youâre really saying is that thereâs some unique characteristic to the American melting pot? But that would be a hella fucking racist thing to say.
In my eyes the unique characteristic of the American Way is the mystique of the Bill of RightsâŚthe First, Second, and Fourth Amendments in particular being celebrated by the flag-wavers.
The âYouâll take my gunsâŚâ crowd are, let me tell you, a really big crowd. Just attend a gun show around here. And theyâre not at all the Walmart crowd you might expect.
As long as the âRightâ to guns towers as high as it does now in the American ethos, youâll have holdouts, and a lot of them, thousands at least. Whatever the gun laws say.
And itâs scary to say what might happen when you criminalize them all in one fell swoop.
Donât forget about the very near future of Robot Cars!
I prefer to take the tack of culturally mocking gun owners in the same way we would mock sexist uncles and racist aunts. There are no real reasons to culturally support gun ownership, so feel free to condescend.
Take the martial arts sword argument: nobody practices with hot steel. Wooden swords are plenty enough.
Hell, even hunting can be done quite well with a bow (and I am sure the number of people that need to hunt with a gun for subsistence is less than the number of people injured or killed by gunfire).
Random last point regarding efficacy of laws in changing behavior: Laws are technically the only thing requiring parents to buckle up their kids. I am 100% certain that more children are properly secured in their cars because of laws than in spite of them.
The people that live in the US are different than the people who live in Australia. Hell the people who live in the South are different than the West Coast, who are different than the Midwest. The starkest differences when it comes to crime is the rural vs urban rates.
But yes, the US is much different than the UK or Australia. Yes the US is unique. We have different groups of people with different attitudes. The way three different nations deal with poverty are different. Our criminal system is different. The history of race relations and how that has affected our society is different. The cultural make up is different.
There is nothing racist about any of that. Itâs just a fact itâs different. Sure we share similarities, but not only is America different from anywhere else, different regions in the US are different from each other.
I have friends in Star Valley, Wyoming who routinely fire rifles from their back porch. Their neighbors do, too. Itâs no big deal there.
I live in a community where the home lots are about 1/4 acre apiece. It would be unthinkable to shoot here. But the desert is a short drive away, and many metropolitan areas donât have that.
@Mister44 what Iâd like to know is how you feel about so-called âSmart Gunâ technology. Itâs an actual legitimate form of gun control, but the NRA still hates it. Whatâs your opinion?
Zzzz Zzzz Zzzz
Uh - yes they do. There are several groups doing mostly European style sparing with live steel in full armor, though they have blunted tips. I just watched a dozen fellows beat on each other last weekend. One guy one had one leg, so it must get hairy some times.
But your argument is basically âstop liking things I donât likeâ.
Iâm all for it. I think for the casual user it has great potential to be an added layer of safety to keep say kids or any unauthorized user from having access to the gun. Assuming, of course, it worked 99.999% of the time. But I think it is a great option for some people.
There has been a sort of âsmart gunâ technology since the 70s. There is a mod you can do to a revolver that required the user to wear a magnetic ring in order for it to fire.
Now I am not sure if the NRAâs official stance is on it, but I know why some people are resistant to it. Because they are afraid that the government will mandate it. âOh - you gun nuts. Thatâs just silly. Youâre being paranoid.â Iâd agree with you except New Jersey already has a law on the books stating just that.
I have defended the technology on gun forums in the past. Many people agree that it would be useful technology for some. No one wants it mandated.
See the resistance comes from people making these statements like: âNO ONE WANTS TO TAKE YOUR GUNS! (crazy rednecks) We just want common sense laws.â
âYou mean like in the UK?â
âYes! Like in the UK!â
âSoo - where they registered and then later outlawed and ordered everyone to turn their guns in? But you donât want to take them, you said.â
So either they are ignorant to what the UK did (which is probably true for a majority of people) or they are lying. At least I can give Feinstein credit for saying it. But you can see why there is a level of mistrust there.
Citation?
So are cars, swimming pools, ladders, prescription drugsâŚ
Any tool capable of doing work carries a risk.
How many gun deaths are unacceptable to you?
We have to consider the cases separately, if weâre more interested in light than heat. So, in order of number of cases per year:
Suicide. Youâre not going to fix this with laws and regulations. This is primarily a mental health problem and a social problem, not a legal problem.
So yeah, non-easy solution #1: Fix mental health treatment in this country.š
Answer to your question: I donât think suicide should be illegal in the first place, nor should we be focused on restricting access to the means. We should instead be focusing on the drives that lead to irrational suicide.
Too far? Tell me: How many suicide opportunities did you pass up today? Dozens, maybe hundreds, Iâd bet. You didnât notice them because you (hopefully!) are not suicidal. Why should your freedom be restricted just because you might become so in the future?
Crime. Again, more laws arenât going to fix this. Pretty much everything that should be illegal is already illegal. Laws against crime only give the legal system something to charge the criminals with after the fact. Weâve got enough such laws.
Adding more laws just gives the legal system cause and means to arrest and charge ordinary citizens for not knowing every law in every municipality, county, and state they may travel to in this vast country.
Defense. This doesnât need to be prevented. Not only are more restrictions not required, there are good arguments that the current restrictions are excessive.
Accident. As with suicide, I have simple answers with a difficult implementation, because they require changing society, rather than passing a few more laws.
I think there are two parts to the solution: Better training, and an increased sense of personal responsibility.
Better training may sound trite, but itâs true. Your average gun owner is often very poorly trained. (Though, because itâs a hobby and a lifestyle for many, the enthusiasts are often better trained than the police and military, who have tight training budgets!)
Tell me: How would you react if a friend â who you had no idea owned guns â came up to you and offered to take you out to the range for a fun afternoon of good, safe target shooting? A lot of people would refuse outright, because theyâve been told that guns are evil.² Many others might agree, but feel that theyâre doing something illicitâŚoooo, guns, scary, arenât we a bunch of badasses! To my way of thinking, a right-minded person would instead look on this as a great opportunity to polish safe gun handling skills, if they had such skills to begin with, or as a way to acquire them if not.
I think we could prevent many more gun accidents by raising the overall level of competence than by passing yet more laws.
Raising our societyâs overall sense of personal responsibility is even harder.
The legal system is a form of ritualized battle, where two opponents enter, and one leaves victorious. We established this system because it is better than vigilantism and tribal wars. But, weâve taken it too far, so that now we can use the legal system as a weapon against our fellow citizens for zero cause and often little repercussion, provided weâre willing to pay professionals to be our proxies in this battle.
Thatâs not community. Thatâs not social cohesion. Itâs just battle by other means.
Mass Shootings. Yeah, dead last, yet it gets media time all out of proportion to its risks and damage to society. In the most recent one I heard about, the guy did it in part to become famous! Stop the media attention, and a large amount of this will dry up, too.
Consider this: There have been no public school mass shootings in Israel, despite the fact that theyâre a tempting target in a country at war. One reason might be that they donât advertise their schools as gun-free zones target-rich undefended zones.
Asides:
Isnât it interesting how most of the gun control noise comes from the political segment that shut down the mental health hospital system we had 60 years ago over concerns of patient abuse (e.g. One Flew Over the Cuckooâs Nest) and a strange belief that if we just let the insane integrate back into society they would be much happier, hence better adjusted, henceâŚwhat, sane? Then we had the homeless crisis of the 80s, and the solution was to give them houses and jobs, which overlooks the possibility that they may be unable to hold a job and thus acquire a home for a perfectly good reason. And then when they commit a crime to support themselves, we lock them up anyway, only in a much less nice place than the old crazy bins!
Oh, donât get me wrong, the other end of the political spectrum was completely complicit in this, because it gave them a way to cut taxes. I just think weâre paying now for a lot of short-sighted policy decisions made 50 years ago.
How many people âhateâ guns only because Hollywood, politicians, and the media tell them that these inert products of manufacturing are fit objects for such an emotion?
I have posed this very option to many who had never handled firearms before, or who took a position of total banning.
Some have taken me up on the offer. I find that they usually leave with the same opinions they came with. If guns were evil already, they still are. If it was fun with grandpa, it still is. The environmental drawbacks are still there.
People truly on the fence are very rare indeed.
Oh my god. Iâm so sorry. Iâm sooooo sorry. You donât understand how sorry I am. We forgot to welcome you to BoingBoing! Let me remedy that.
@Mister44, @tangent, and @clevername what about Switzerland? Why does Switzerland never get brought up in these debates? They have what I would easily consider one of the best gun control systems in the world (When reading the wikipedia article on Switzerland donât forget that Switzerland actually has a national militia, unlike the U.S.).
ETA - I would also just like to quickly add (Before someone either responds to me or⌠crickets) that when your only response to a possible policy solution for a major problem is to list all of its negatives without suggesting an alternative idea you discredit yourself.
Iâm fine with having an actual debate with someone, I donât mind having diverging opinions in a forum, and I actually think diversity of opinions creates a better atmosphere for discussion (mind-blown, right?). That being said, a discussion requires both sides to present possible solutions or ideas, we just end up talking in circles otherwise, and circles ainât no fun.
I much prefer talking in branches, that way you keep spawning new ideas. Also it is pretty much guaranteed that there will be a working compromise for a solution in one of those branching ideas.
Swiss militia system stipulates that the soldiers keep their own personal equipment, including all personally assigned weapons, at home.
Swiss Armed Forces - Wikipedia
