People who are victims of attempted (and successful) vehicular manslaughter appear to get less justice. In fact, their attacker often gets off with a slap on the wrist. I think that reality bleeds into the “But cars kill more people!” attitude.
If that’s the utopia you’re looking for, I’d suggest visiting Japan. It’s got the strict gun bans and public transportation out the wahoo. It’s worth the trip, just to see what it’s like. It would take a major paradigm shift for something similar to work at or near the same level in the US.
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How would cases like this one in Texas be categorized (had it resulted in death)? http://abc13.com/news/passenger-shot-in-the-face-in-road-rage-incident/644460/
Or into a French mountain range like a recent mass-murderer.
Sigh. A gun ban could stop suicides. More hurdles won’t stop someone determined to get one, especially if they don’t have a criminal record.
No gun law will affect the millions who already had a gun long before they become suicidal.
Instead of screwing around the millions of regular folk trying to keep dangerous tools out of the hands of a small percentage of suicidal people, let’s focus on directly diagnosing and treating people with suicidal tendencies. There is no logic in penalizing millions of people to keep others from self harm.
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How the legal system treats people who die via guns/cars is another issue (but as a recent case, where a guy accidentally shot a visitor to death with no charges filed shows, the two situations aren’t necessarily so different). The real issues are that cars are regulated out the wazoo (in construction, operation, sales) in order to make them safer, there are many, many things that can cause one’s right to drive to be taken away, there’s all sorts of tracking of drivers and vehicles, etc. None of which happens with guns on any level. And of course cars are used by a majority of the population on a regular basis for hours a week, so the relative danger of vehicles versus guns has to take that into account as well. Also having access to a vehicle is an (economic) necessity for most Americans, something which isn’t true for guns.
Here’s some data for 2013:
Not that I want to bring Newton up. It was just, y’know, a statistical outlyer. Armed with an assault rifle.
I lived there for over three years. The crazy thing is that guns aren’t even illegal; I’ve eaten wild boar that was hunted and shot in the mountains next door. Apparently sane gun laws can work, but I digress.
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Which states would have the largest numbers of concealed carry people, along with laws like your “stand your ground”? (coming from Australia where we do not have either of these)
No one knows because the pollsters are afraid of having a gun pulled on them.
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You can find those numbers. Look - googled it - http://www.inquisitr.com/444177/concealed-carry-permit-statistics-by-state-report/
Though that doesn’t necessarily mean it is a good indicator of what number of people in what state. Because states practice reciprocity, some people opt to get an out of state license that is cheaper/easier to get than in the state they are in (but it is recognized by their state). Pretty sure that is why Florida is so high.
Though really, your average person looking to get a CCW isn’t one looking to commit crimes with it. And even the relatively lax Florida permit process still requires a back ground check, so people with these licenses are known to be non-felons nor have like domestic violence records. People want to portray someone interested in carry and defense as an overzealous Zimmerman, and that just isn’t the case. CCWs aren’t responsible for the violence out there.
The car vs gun deaths do seem disconnected from concealed carry given the link you posted - Pennsylvania with highest gunsVcar has a lowish 142000 concealed carry. Ohio has 300 000 concealed.
Texas (524 000 carry people) and Florida (985 000 carry people) don’t even appear on the gunsVcar chart of states.
Maybe they just kill a lot of people with cars.
Why would a state with higher CCW have more gun deaths?
It is the people with out CCW licenses that still carry that are more libel to commit crimes.
Most people who get a CCW take it seriously. They tend to be more vigilant and are more likely to disengage rather than escalate. They aren’t the same kind of people who carry because they are in an illicit trade and/or plan to use weapons for robberies etc.
You mean the cops?
Unfortunately, we can’t even have a sane, rational, numbers-based discussion about shootings, because the NRA has successfully killed all national funding for studying the issue by essentially holding lawmakers at gunpoint with “report cards” and hyperbolic newsletters.
Which is why the NRA and associated groups don’t represent me or many other even-keeled firearms owners.
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I’m torn on this. Do I really trust the government is going to get good data? This is the same government with little to no data on cop vs civilian shootings. The same one that wants to restrict information, cryptology, and warrantless monitoring of our phone and internet usage. Do I trust they will do data gathering with out an agenda?
At the same time, we do have FBI statistics for crimes and the CDC still keeps track of accidents and suicide numbers. There is nothing stopping a 3rd party from doing their own research, much like the grassroots movement to track police shootings.
I didn’t mean to imply guns were illegal in Japan, but strictly controlled. I think you have to document your use of the gun to in order to keep it.
Here’s an old (1993) essay on Japanese Gun Control that pretty interesting.
Japan’s gun laws grow out of a culture premised on voluntary submission to authority, a cultural norm that is not necessarily replicated in Western democracies.
The same essay contains this canard
he weapons law begins by stating ‘No-one shall possess a fire-arm or fire-arms or a sword or swords’, and very few exceptions are allowed.
Have you even seen Kill Bill?
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