Suicide. “You’re not going to fix this with laws and regulations.”
But you can reduce the access of suicidal people to guns. Sure, they’ll find a different method, but guns are easier and their use causes (emotional and financial and sometimes criminal) liability for the gun owner if they weren’t the suicidal person.
Crime
If we can reduce the availability of guns and bullets, we can make them so expensive that purchasing them on the street isn’t a viable option for a poor criminal.
Defense
Not all “defense” is defensive, e.g. George Zimmerman playing cowboy cop in his neighborhood. But if criminals have fewer guns, then the need for civilians to have guns for defense should be reduced as well.
Accident
If guns and bullets are not as readily available, accidents would occur less often.
Mass Shootings
Again, if we can reduce the availability of guns and bullets, we can make them so expensive that purchasing them on the street or legally purchasing them in a gun shop isn’t a viable option for a poor young angry white male.
You won’t be able to stop media attention for mass shootings since, “if it bleeds, it leads.” And UCC wasn’t a gun-free zone, nor is any Oregon college due to concealed carry laws in that state. The gun-free zone argument is bullshit because mass shootings have been carried out in non-gun-free zones as well. A homicidal/suicidal mass shooter doesn’t care about more than a decent kill count before they get killed or commit suicide. The element of surprise makes the presence of guns (such as was the case at UCC) useless or at least inadvisable. How do you know which gun-wielding person with a gun is a good guy or a bad guy?
Asides:
I wasn’t alive 60 years ago and I don’t care about the politics of gun control. It’s not a partisan issue for me. It’s a human issue.
I don’t hate guns. I think guns are awesome. I just don’t like the danger that guns present to human beings that I care about and don’t want them around me or my family or, ideally, around anyone who doesn’t deserve to get shot. If that means reducing the ability of gun enthusiasts to amass an arsenal for their post-apocalyptic fantasies, so be it.
This is already the law and it isn’t working. Your proposal would require that all illegal gun owners keep their guns on their person in order to get caught. It would also lead to a lot of 4th amendment violations like stop and frisk because the cops would use it as an excuse to harass people regardless of whether they legitimately thought you might have a gun (i.e. people of color).
If you reduce the availability of guns and bullets by reducing the ability of gun shops to sell guns and gun manufacturers to make and distribute them, the issue would be far easier to deal with. Gradually choking down the supply over decades while immediately reducing the supply of new weapons and ammo would go a long way in reducing gun violence. Prices would go up. Poor criminals wouldn’t be able to purchase them anymore because the black market cost would increase above their means. If mom or dad can’t afford to take junior to the range every weekend and can’t afford to have multiple guns in the house, junior can’t get proficient with the use of a gun, own several himself, and take them to school one day for a mass shooting show and tell.
Given a suicidal person, gun fatalities are 98% effective. Swallowing a bottle of Xanax is 20% effective. I posted the stats… Somewhere, but they are easy to find.
First off if cops see someone printing (showing outline of a firearm under their clothes) they probably would detain and search that person. If that is what you mean, they already do that.
But indiscriminate frisking or frisking someone who “looks” like they might have weapon? They already basically do that in NYC (Stop and Frisk). And who do cops target most for weapons and drugs? Young black males. Statistically, at least in large cities, they make up the highest percentage of offenders. Which makes the police focus on them more, which of course means they go after them more, making their numbers go up - a sort of self fulfilling prophecy.
But even taking out the horrible potential for racism fueled abuse of this policy, this is the god damn United States America. The legal system was set up original prevent that shit. Innocent until proven guilty - searches require warrants. It is a civil rights violation.
Well, for one, you could, I don’t know, not sell guns anymore? It seems to work for most of the rest of the world, where gun related deaths are much, much lower. Just sayin’.
of course it won’t stop people who REALLY want to get a gun. But toddlers and kids won’t be able to get one, and “normal” people wouldn’t go out of their way to get one illegally.
Somehow, this doesn’t really resonate with me, given that firearm accidents account for <2% of unintentional deaths of children (link), which itself is less than half of all child deaths (link).
Emotionally manipulating people by overblowing an issue is of course par for the course for all media, but I would expect better from BB and especially Xeni.
Seems like the old saw of “a swimming pool is an order of magnitude more dangerous to a child than a gun” still holds true too.
You’re absolutely right. But I don’t believe in punishing 80-100 million gun owners because of 800 accidental deaths per year. (Some of those being suicides labeled as accidents.)
Pools, swords, staircases and all other manner of childhood hazard has been well covered in the comments below mine, are you commenting to me just because I was “first”? Why not comment to Xeni directly with your complaint?
Also, as a Canadian, you can play the numbers game all you like with your “2%” but y’all have way more shootings per capita than we do, toddler caused or no, to me, that is horrifying and in need of discussion and change. Y’all made an amendment once upon a time, I’m sure you can do it again if you try.
I’d love to be allowed to drive 100 mph down the freeway but I understand that my interest in that might be contradictory to the safety of myself and others. Having so many guns in the hands of so many people in this country is contradictory to the safety of yourself and others, no matter how responsible of a gun owner you personally might be.
There tons of limits on who can own guns, who can buy guns, and where guns are used. To use your analogy I can’t legally drive down the highway shooting in the air either. I guess I could POTENTIALLY do that if I wanted to, just like you could potentially drive 100 mph down the road. Nothing is stopping millions of drivers every day to drive that fast or reckless (I saw one today putting this theory to the test.)
So somehow you are comfortable with the average car owner to follow and obey the rules of the road, but not gun owners? Why is that?
That’s exactly why gun control gets no traction in the United States. Michael Moore is the clearest example of the political ratfucking of gun control by people who treat it as all shits and giggles. I paid to see Bowling For Columbine in the theater and I was completely disappointed because it served only to alienate people in the midwest and probably helped reelect George Bush. Fine, be that way, but the rest of us don’t even have to pretend to take you seriously, OK? Go change the world by voting for Nader.
Because car owners purchase vehicles to get from point A to point B. If a car owner uses their car irresponsibly, they’re not using it as intended.
The purpose of guns are to kill living beings. If a gun owner (or illegal gun possessor) kills someone with a gun, they are using it as intended.
If you built and sold an assassin robot, but some assassin robot owners didn’t use it to kill people, I’d still argue that we shouldn’t be building and selling assassin robots to the general populace (or the military).
