Points that I will consider ignoring what I’ve already argued/begging the question/non sequitirs:
“Straw purchases are already illegal!” The fact of something’s illegality does not indicate that the current laws against it are effective deterrents, or effective tools for enforcement, or that other laws might not be better deterrents or more effective tools for enforcement, so this is really a non sequitir.
“Guns are just tools.” Tools are devices to make particular tasks easier. In the case of guns, the task in question is killing. I take it as a given that there is a public interest in making killing more difficult rather than easier. This goes for both homicide and suicide.
“More laws aren’t going to stop gun violence.” Using the same logic: “laws against murder aren’t going to stop murder.” Which is undeniably true – even with centuries of laws against murder on our side, murders still happen. So completely preventing an activity isn’t the goal here – if a law can reduce the number of guns available on the black market (say, by preventing some kinds of straw purchases) or increase the price of guns available on the black market, then it is almost certain that some amount of gun violence and/or credible threats of violence (say, in an armed robbery) is prevented.
“Law X is a bad law!” I don’t disagree that there are such things as bad gun laws, or that much of the gun control debate is driven by propaganda and ignorance of some very salient facts. Nonetheless, I am not arguing for any particular regulations – I am arguing against the notion that any further regulation is necessarily useless or worse (since that seems to be the position you are arguing).
“You can also kill with a knife.” As discussed above, guns are devices designed for making it easier to kill. This isn’t a binary proposition – there’s a whole spectrum of possibilities. Killing with a gun is just easier than killing with a knife for a number of reasons. The psychological barriers are very relevant – many human beings who would never be able to bring themselves to stab or slice the flesh of another human being with a knife may still be able to bring themselves to pull a trigger. And of course, anyone determined enough to use a knife to kill could use a gun to kill even more efficiently.
“The problem is with criminals, not legal purchases!” Since most criminals seem to get their guns ultimately from a straw purchase, please see point (1). The policies and regulations around legal purchases seem to be very relevant to questions about how difficult and expensive it is to obtain a gun through “illegal” means – obviously these policies and regulations are relevant to straw purchases, but since straw purchases are the ultimate source for many guns on the black market, this is relevant to the black market as well.
If you come up with anything novel I’ll take a look, but if you’re just rehashing the above points like we do every time, might as well spend that time with your kids or something instead. We’ve heard it before and it’s not convincing for the reasons already given.
Yeah the whole defense thing is a frightening and wrong approach to guns. And most people who buy into it buy the wrong gun for that situation, even if it was some how true.
The whole subject is horribly skewed by marketing. Even fire arms safety classes are mostly NRA run and routinely deal with “tactical home defense” and how the gub’mint are coming to git yer guns rather than actual safe practice. Its the driver behind that whole dangerous gun culture that’s more worrying than raw number of guns.
And its not helped by gun control advocates who don’t seem to understand base things about fire arms, including safety shit and how they work. Probably one of the primary reasons I have interest in the subject. If you really want to practically regulate the things it would help to understand them as well as you can.
[quote=“TheGreatParis, post:9, topic:88448, full:true”]
If this is an effective political ad, all this proves to me is that the USA is a little too obsessed with guns.[/quote]
All nations have their little obsessions. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were French ads with candidates slicing cheese blindfolded.
ETA: I mean the politician wearing the blindfold, not the cheese.
Find a gun turn in program. You’ll get cash or gift cards for them. Usually in excess of what the guns are worth. Irregardless of their being functional. a lot of them are partnered or sponsored by companies like Amazon these days. Meaning even if you don’t need grocery money (the big push is for grocery gift cards) you get something practical for it. Cash options when they exist tend to be lower.
Changing access to an easy way of killing one self does make a difference.
When coal gas was changed in the UK in the 60s and people could no longer commit suicides by putting their
head in the oven the number of suicides declined.
As did the number of suicides when Australia cracked down on guns, after the Port Arthur mass shooting.
(so did the number of spree killings, they had a dozen prior to Port Arthur and none since for twenty years.)
OK, do the math. ~9million “heavily armed” people, how many at each of the Bundy “protests” maybe 900 total? I’ll gladly submit to a better sourced number.
Is 1 in 1000 statistically likely?
The vast majority of gun owners are safe and law abiding people. Those with more guns have more to lose and are less likely to violate the law. They are also more likely to be rich enough to afford permits and other legal sanctions so they are not breaking the law.
The gun community is on the whole law abiding. The edge cases get all the attention, and most of us facepalm harder then those who’d further restrict guns when they do something patently stupid, like the Bundy protests, or open carry rifles down the street. Because these edge cases are going to hurt the rest of us, by giving those who’d further restrict guns a reason to move forward.
The NRA and the hardcore “Not another inch” people need to come to the negotiating table and give in on background checks and a few other issues that don’t hurt the law abiding but may restrict criminals. In return those who want to restrict guns should be willing to reduce restrictions or so-called “Assault weapons” and things like suppressors/“silencers” that statistically do no additional harm. then we can get to the actual really hard issue, handguns.
Until, for some reason, they change to being neither. Assuming this is some steady state situation is just wrong. I’m sure there are many mass shooting incidents caused by people who were considered “safe and law abiding” when they bought their weapons.
Statistical change is what we need to look at. Statistically all crime including gun crime is way, way down. The people, including gun owners, are changing to being more law abiding when you look at the data.
From what I’ve read (and I’m willing to be corrected) most mass shooters get their guns from straw purchases, or by robbing or killing a gun owner. A few (Virginia Tech and the Charleston Church) were failures of the background check system which should be addressed and patched. Registration (to catch straw purchases) and safe storage laws (to prevent foreseeable access by unauthorized persons to lawfully owned firearms) would be sensible ways to limit that risk. California has both of these and the law abiding can still own guns. It’s the other BS laws that are the problem.
Look, if you believe that most people are too dangerous to trust with guns, nothing I can say will change your mind. But the statistics show that >99% of gun owners are not going to hurt anyone and that number is improving even as assault weapon bans and other gun control loosens. It’s not perfect and improvements should be made. But statistically, nearly all gun owners are law abiding and not hurting anyone with their guns, a trend that is improving.
The armed police force? The police have lost that whole “Outgunned by the criminals” argument decades ago.
OR is your argument that a significant percentage of gun owners might all turn to crime or insurrection at once, overwhelming the police and ruining society? History and current trends make that unlikely. More likely is that gun ownership will continue to decline, gun control will continue to increase and the percentage of gun owners will slowly dwindle to the some of the very rich or very motivated.
