Once more, gun control opponents...

[bedstuy]

Oh, by the way. How will more gun control punish criminals? They won't care, and I feel that gun crime will INCREASE as a result of civilians not having guns anymore.

As if there are two groups of people:  Criminals and non-criminal.  Like the world is a children's cartoon with the bad guys and the good guys.

Every criminal was a non-criminal until they committed a crime.

Sure, we could cut down crime a lot if we totally eliminated poverty and social problems in poor communities.  It's not going to happen any time soon and people shouldn't die in the meantime.  And, the NRA and Republican don't want to do anything to help poor black communities anyway.  They want to screw them over more!

Here are a few evident facts:

Guns are a more effective weapon than knives.

Decreasing the access to guns among the general public would make it more difficult to kill/injure people with guns.  

Guns in the hands of the public cause way more crime than they prevent.

You could decrease access to guns with a number of measures.   Gun-buyback programs, registration and licensing programs, mandatory background checks.  Or, what about a 25% excise tax on guns?  If you increase the price of a good, it's going to affect sales.  

[bedstuy]

Oh, by the way. How will more gun control punish criminals? They won't care, and I feel that gun crime will INCREASE as a result of civilians not having guns anymore.

As if there are two groups of people:  Criminals and non-criminal.  Like the world is a children's cartoon with the bad guys and the good guys.

Every criminal was a non-criminal until they committed a crime.

Sure, we could cut down crime a lot if we totally eliminated poverty and social problems in poor communities.  It's not going to happen any time soon and people shouldn't die in the meantime.  And, the NRA and Republican don't want to do anything to help poor black communities anyway.  They want to screw them over more!

Here are a few evident facts:

Guns are a more effective weapon than knives.

Decreasing the access to guns among the general public would make it more difficult to kill/injure people with guns.  

Guns in the hands of the public cause way more crime than they prevent.

You could decrease access to guns with a number of measures.   Gun-buyback programs, registration and licensing programs, mandatory background checks.  Or, what about a 25% excise tax on guns?  If you increase the price of a good, it's going to affect sales.  

Ummm, guns are a distant third in crime instruments behind blunt instruments and bare hands. I don't think people want to ban those.

What does that even mean?

Relevant FBI stats:

Murder: 67.7% firearm, 13.4% knives, 5.8% fists/feet/hands
Armed Robbery: 41.3% firearm, 7.8% knives, 8.7% other.

[bedstuy]

Freebird.  You're being an completely unreasonable, illogical and you're being an idiot.

Can you just consider the question being posed here?

What is the relationship between availability, price, regulation of guns and gun violence?

It's an empirical question.  

You just assert ipse dixit that the more guns an area has, the safer it is.  There's no data that shows that.  And, it defies common sense.

Here's a scenario, one that I've seen first-hand in the relatively poor black neighborhood where I live.

All of a sudden, a criminal with a gun fires at rival gang member, misses and shoots a bystander through the head.  If the bystander had a gun, it wouldn't make any difference.  If the rival gang member has a gun, it just doubles the chance of a bystander getting shot.  

Those situations abound!  And, let's face it, 16 year old gang members aren't rational actors who sensibly consider the risks of their actions and behave accordingly.  They aren't going to weigh the chance that "a good guy with a gun" will step in and save the day.

[bedstuy]

Or, more importantly, the Brady Crime Bill went into effect in 1994.

[bedstuy]

Just to add another data point:

Recent WaPo article:
Guns in America: For every criminal killed in self-defense, 34 innocent people die

[bedstuy]

Okay. Let's settle this. Every anti gun person here besides ag who is paranoid. What do you propose we do in terms of gun laws? At this point we are arguing in circles.

Off the top of my head.

Close the loopholes to make sure all non-antique guns are purchased with a background check.

Gun-buyback programs in inner-cities

Create new penalties and regulations on straw purchases.

Civil Liability for straw purchasers and/or improperly selling a gun used in a crime.

An excise tax on firearms to pay for gun-buybacks, community policing and other crime prevention programs.

Repeal DC v. Heller

[bedstuy]

Also, politicians pay close attention to their constituents.  If we see a repeat of this in coming weeks:



there is no point in pushing for gun control.  Let alone amending the Second Amendment.   

There is a point in pushing for gun control as long as people continue to die on this scale from gun violence. We must act. Enough with this libertarian nonsense about fearing tyranny from the government. This isn't tyranny, this is public safety.

BTW that graph shows a very small spike after Newtown. If that's what your point was.

The long-term trend has been towards less support for gun control, not more.

Let's not cling to straws here. 

"We're losing on an issue!  Let's give in to the opposing side!"

Typical loser Democratic Party thinking. 

If you're losing on an issue, you try to convince people that you're right.  That's what the NRA did in the 90s and 2000s.  If you organize and work hard with passion to win people over, you can turn a losing issue into a winning issue.  That's how politics is supposed to work.

Should Hillary Clinton run on gun control in 2016?  Of course not.  That would be idiotic.  You have to know when to play your cards.  But, in the meantime, people who care about the epidemic of gun violence in this country need to start the movement to change people's minds.

[bedstuy]

Ultimately, I would like a system where you need a specific reason to own a gun. 

So, if you're a hunter, you can own a rifle to go hunting.  If you're a target shooter, you can own a rifle or shotgun for target shooting.  If you're an antique gun collector, you can own antique guns. 

However, I wouldn't allow just anyone to own a gun for self-defense.  You should either have to be a law enforcement officer or have a compelling reason and pass a series of tests and background checks.

That seems like a sensible system.

[bedstuy]

And how may you know this? It is proven that areas with more civilian guns have lower crime rates.

No. 

[bedstuy]

That's a terrible comeback to my claim, IMO.  The difference is that gun control actively represses a Constitutional right of law-abiding citizens and doesn't accomplish its stated goal either.  I should be able to have a gun in my home to defend against possible home invasion, and that right should not be affected by whatever a racist psycho decided to do, no matter how horrible it was.

We can't just disregard Constitutional rights on impulsive desires to "fix" things.  It'd probably be better if everyone had to prove their identity before they voted, no?  It'd cut down on voter fraud.  However, purchasing an ID as a requirement to vote really is a form of poll tax, so we don't affect everyone's right to vote based on isolated incidents.

You're looking at this wrong.

Do you support legalizing ALL arms for the general public?  Sarin gas, nuclear weapons, machine guns,  bombs, rocket propelled grenades, etc.  That would be limiting our right to bare arms to the minimal extent. 

But, that's ridiculous, because it's too dangerous to allow people to own things like truck bombs and chemical weapons.  So, we impose limits and regulations.

We've imposed a variety of limits on guns, background checks, gun bans on certain models, etc.  Some of those limits have worked really well.  For example, the homicide rate in the US plummeted after the implementation of the Brady Bill in 1994.  Other regulations don't seem to have made a huge difference like the Assault Weapons ban. 

But, that's the proper debate.  How do, while respecting the 2nd Amendment's limits, allow both gun ownership and increase public safety?  It's not "Ban all guns!" or "allow all weapons!"  There's a nuanced debate to be had about what measures work and what role responsible gun owners have in enjoying a hobby without endangering lives.

[bedstuy]

I think you got the point Simfan.  Reverse it then.

[bedstuy]

Probably a combination of cultural and legal factors. Basically, the U.S. culture is more violent in general and the U.S. government criminalizes a broader range of activity, which increases violence (gun-related and otherwise) for obvious reasons. The solution is just to give people more freedom. Fewer laws, less crime, less violence.

What does the US criminalize that Canada, France, Germany and the UK do not criminalize?  I would agree that we could reduce violence by ending the drug war, but it's not like drugs are legal everywhere with less gun violence.

Here's a question for Atlas hoplophobes, if guns are the cause of relatively high U.S. violent crime rates, why is there no correlation whatsoever between the two:

That graph is so stupid, it takes my breathe away. 

The potential danger uptick with guns is when one household or person goes from 0 guns to 1 gun.  Going from 1 gun to 50 guns isn't going to matter nearly as much.  Much of that increase is attributable to a few people buying many guns.  To wit:



The gun ownership rate has gone down significantly during that period!  That is clearly the more important statistic, not the sheer number of guns in existence.   

Furthermore, when other Western industrialized nations tightened their gun control policies, crime in those nations went up, which suggests that the reason those nations have lower gun crime rates than the United States has nothing to do with gun control, and than gun control itself is completely ineffective at reducing crime.

That BBC article from 15 years ago is not good data.  It related to the UK, which is not comparable to the US in terms of gun violence.  They basically had their gun crime rate tick up once 15 years ago, from an already low rate.  Not proof of anything.

There are plenty of studies that show gun control decreasing crime and gun injuries/deaths.  The Brady Bill for instance took effect in 1994 and the crime rate in the US plummeted.  That's not to say that correlation equals causation, it's a complicated research question to prove either way.

But, none of these facts really matter to the people who truly drive the power-agendas of the world. They want everyone to rely on the State for protection so that they can be easily controlled and won't object to crap like police militarization and various police-state measures. It starts in kindergarten when they indoctrinate kids into the pussy mentality of "don't fight back, tell a teacher." They want you to be absolutely reliant on authority and unable to defend yourself or anyone else.

No, some people actually want fewer people to get shot. 

[bedstuy]

That's "ironing is delicious" line is from the Simpsons.

[bedstuy]

Supporters of gun control are advocating law changes to address a gun violence problem. So, this is a matter of policy. It's a matter of law. We shouldn't allow policy to be defined by the emotional reaction to tragedy.

Handguns are the most widely available guns that are explicitly designed to kill people. That is the only purpose for which handguns are manufactured. They're also the guns used in the vast majority of gun crimes across the country. Gun control supporters should be supporting policies that resemble Chicago's handgun ban, which was deemed unconstitutional so it's also a fruitless conversation. The handgun ban didn't work. Penalties for gun ownership were put in place, sales were banned, and the killing kept on. The data Deus presented from the Australian crime statistics group is also equally compelling in terms of a handgun ban's practicality.

That's not fair.  One city can't implement gun control.  If you can still easily buy illegal guns or just drive 20 minutes out of Chicago to buy a gun, whatever Chicago policy is going to be circumvented.  If you look at the data, the vast majority of guns seized by cops in Chicago come from outside Cook County.   In fact, many come from out of the state of Illinois.

Not to mention, the Chicago handgun ban did coincide with a reduction in homicides in Chicago.  It's possible that it was extremely successful.

Assault weapons are a favorite target of the gun control crowd. Ignoring the extremely small role they play in gun crimes, there is also the fact that crime trends were generally not impacted by the assault weapons ban. The chart used earlier in the thread to try to create a causal relationship between the two ignores a glaring fact. Decline in crime continued despite the ban's expiration and increased sale in assault weapons.

Assault weapons aren't generally used in street crime.  You can't tote a large rifle around an urban area without someone noticing.  I get that.  But, the government needs to enforce a limit on firepower at some point.

The point is often made that the vast majority of violent crimes aren't gun crimes. More violent crimes are committed with knives, by unarmed perpetrators, and with blunt objects than are committed with guns. This leads to the conclusion that violence is the result of people, not a result of weapons. Therefore, whatever policy prescription we put forward should address the problems that exist in people, not in weapons.

Of course weapons don't create crime by themselves.  That's a blatant straw man.  Nobody thinks guns shoot themselves. 

And, that statistic is meaningless.  Many people committing a violent crime don't want to use a gun because they don't want to or need to.  In some cases, a gun is too effective a weapon for someone's purposes.   The problem is that guns are used in the large majority of murders. 

Murders are especially bad crimes in most people's book.  And, that's what guns do, they take aggressive, dumb situations and turn them into tragedies. 

The conversation over gun culture is a much more troubling addition to the conversation. Gun culture in America is surrounded by learning how to use a gun. This means teaching things like muzzle control, knowing the area around you, etc. Getting a gun safe is important in gun culture. America's gun culture places a very heavy emphasis on safety and treating weapons with respect.

Tell that to the crips.

Concealed carry is important for personal safety. As has been said before, if one of the patrons at the movie theater shooting in Denver had been armed, the shooting could have been minimized. Having responsible, trained people carrying is hardly a threat to public safety. The reality in much of this country is one of long police response times. Especially in much of rural America, police officers can take a significant amount of time to respond to violent crime. A fast, effective response to violent crime is crucial. Concealed carry provides that response.

That might be true in one incident.  We don't know.  "The good guy with a gun" in a dark movie theater could have easily been shot before he got a chance to return fire or he could have missed.  People aren't trained to use guns in that way and they're not walking around prepared to engage in a shootout. 

But, the bigger issue is that guns increase the danger in the aggregate.  Maybe one person with a conceal carry permit would stop a crime, maybe another person with a conceal carry permit commits a crime.  Guns are used in crimes way more often than they're used in self-defense.  This is just a fact."For every criminal killed in self-defense, 34 innocent people die."  So, maybe you could stop one mass shooting every 40 years at the cost of tons of other shootings and suicides.  Not worth it.

This conversation is also in need of some intellectual modesty. We shouldn't talk past the evidence. The evidence is clear. There is no data to suggest that concealed carry is a threat to public safety. There is also no data to reasonably suggest that stricter gun laws, such as those present in American cities, reduce crime or make communities safer. The evidence renders a clear verdict: we don't have a gun problem.

ag has it right.  Lack of data cannot render a clear verdict on anything.

You're basically asking for data that's impossible to create, and then concluding on the basis that said data doesn't exist.  Are you nuts?

But, just as an illustration, imagine this study.

We pick a group of similar neighborhoods with similar amounts of property crime and robbery in a range of urban areas.

Sketchy neighborhoods in low gun control cities: New Orleans, Birmingham, Al.
Sketchy neighborhoods in medium gun control cities:  New York, DC.
Sketchy neighborhoods in high gun control cities: London, Berlin.

Do you think there would be a trend in homicide and gun violence?