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Banning firearms in general worked for the UK and Australia, 2 places that have experienced this type of massacre while having a significant number of legally h

Banning firearms in general worked for the UK and Australia, 2 places that have experienced this type of massacre while having a significant number of legally held firearms. Since the firearm bans there has been a huge reduction in these types of incidents. It is entirely possible to do the same in the USA, however it may take longer to remove all weapons simply because you have been so slow to respond to this problem. Basically when things like this happen and people think that the government are going to take their guns, a certain type of person will buy more guns, just in case. If there is a gun amnesty or ban then these people will not turn in their guns, it will be these guns that are then sold illegally or stolen and will perpetuate the problem for longer.

thatswrong0 9y ago
Banning firearms in general won't work in America. There are already more guns than people in circulation, the right to own them is codified into the Constitution and requires an amendment to fix (and amendments are ridiculously hard to pass), and of course there's the huge section of the population that would probably rather die than let their right to own guns be infringed. Not to mention that we do have a giant border with Mexico to our south that would probably make any attempt to remove all guns from America pointless.
- jazoom 9y ago
  >Banning firearms in general won't work in America. Obligatory "not with that attitude".
- celticninja 9y ago
  >Banning firearms in general won't work in America. This is the go to reason that people give, but it just means they haven't tried. No one said it would be cheap or easy but it could be done. As for gun smuggling, the USA used to be the source of 80% of guns used in crimes in Canada and in Mexico it is 70%. https://www.quora.com/How-are-guns-smuggled-into-the-United-States https://www.quora.com/How-are-guns-smuggled-into-the-United-... https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/12/462781469/in-mexico-tens-of-thousands-of-illegal-guns-come-from-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/12/462781469... https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10771628/gun-violence-america-mexico https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10771628/gun-violence-america-... So actually a gun ban in the USA would help both Canada and Mexico with their gun problems. In Mexico many of these guns end up in the hands of the cartels who are much more willing to use them than your usual criminals, and whilst they would still probably be able to obtain weapons they would not be able to do so in the same sort of volume and they would also have trouble locating ammunition.
  - burger_moon 9y ago
    It worked get for alcohol prohibition. I'm sure it'll be about as easy for guns.
    - fatjokes 9y ago
      Do Americans love guns that much?? I mean, there are so many other toys to play with. Does owning a gun cause a nice buzz? Is it a social lubricant that makes everybody at a party happier when you bring it out? Does it have an ancient history that spans across the globe? Does it result in a chemical addiction? Haven't found a good replacement for alcohol that wasn't more illegal or harmful.
      - obsolete_ideas 9y ago
        Guns aren't toys. They are an important tool in America's system of checks and balances: Guns are not for shooting deer; guns are for shooting politicians. The 2nd Amendment is very clear; in fact, it's probably the clearest portion of the entire Constitution: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." In order to protect the freedom of each state from the imposition of some tyranny, it must be possible to gather groups of patriots who are armed with the highest quality equipment; therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. America was born out of armed revolution against a tyrannical government, and Americans are taught that they must be wary of enemies both foreign and domestic. To Americans, the government is at best a dangerous servant, and at worst a tyrannical master. The gun is known as "The Great Equalizer" for a reason. To restrict gun ownership is to transfer even more power from the weak (the individual) to the strong (the State); that is anathema to those who understand what it actually means to be an American.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        fyolnish 9y ago
        When is it appropriate to shoot a politician?
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Many of those guns are smuggled out to Latin America (guns for drugs trade), while the rest are owned by an increasingly small segment of the population. Mexico doesn’t mass produce enough guns to feed the American market in any significant way, and their gun laws are much more strict than ours. It’s the other way around: the bad guys in Mexico get most of our guns from us, the gun shops in the USA with the highest sales are near the border.
  - jakeogh 9y ago
    Then Mexico should build another wall like the one on it's southern border. I'm serious, but the reason I have used from your comment is taking your assumptions as true. I'm all for the wall for a different reason; countries must control their borders or the people living there are not sovereign. I have been to Mexico a few times (it's an awesome place!), right near the border, and much further south, but I did not feel it was a safe place. I know enough people with stories that I would rather not try to tell here. In Mexico, only the criminals and police are armed. Cross the border to the US, and volla, we all are equals. You can watch nearly endless TY* of cartel shootouts in Mexico (on residential streets), that stuff is practically impossible here, the elderly person down the street has weapons capable of hitting a body 200+ meters away. Mexico will be much safer when it's not just the criminals in the general population who can defend themselves. It's going to be an interesting conversation when it's only US citizens that have DRM-free DMLS systems. *I didn't check today, but I bet the memory hole is working on that...
galieos_ghost 9y ago
London just passed New York in Homicide rate for the first time ever, doesn't seem to have worked too well.
- yardie 9y ago
  Yes, they’ve been cutting government services. Some parts of London are effectively lawless because there is not enough police to cover everywhere. Mental health, social services, youth and gang intervention have been underfunded.
  - kelchm 9y ago
    Sure would be nice to have a gun to protect yourself when the police aren't able to.
  - celticninja 9y ago
    No parts of London are effectively lawless. That's fox news leaking out of you.
- martinpw 9y ago
  That is based on severe cherry picking of data - just one month (February 2018) and small absolute numbers (11 vs 15). On longer sampling intervals the rate is still quite a bit higher in NY: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43628494 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43628494
rayiner 9y ago
Fun fact: after Australia enacted gun control and gun buybacks in 1996, murder rates in Australia went down slower than in the U.S. over that same period.
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  Australia, a country of 20M people, had 354 homicides (not just firearm related) in 1996, down to 282 ten years later. In 1997, it had a rate of 1.733:100,000, and by 2007, 1.2. In 1997, the US had a rate of 6.678:100,000, and by 2007, 5.7. We had a lot more room for improvement. And you're still nearly five times more likely to be murdered in the US than Australia. But hey, it says a whole lot about the narrative you'd like to push when you want to focus on that delta. "America got safer faster! (Just ignore the fact it was very far worse and still far less safe!)". I think you're likely to find the homicide rate asymptotically approaches zero, and as such it would be hard for Australia to improve at the same rate as the US. I'm not sure what correlation you can show to "firearm control doesn't work" from that. Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?end=2015&locations=US-AU&start=1997 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?end=2015...
  - rayiner 9y ago
    You’ve got the burden of proof wrong. Before limiting citizens’ freedoms, you need evidence that gun control works. Pointing to places like Australia, which already had dramatically lower homicide rates, then saw rates drop more slowly than in the US over that time, doesn’t help prove that point. Gun control can’t be the reason homicides are so low in Australia compared to the US; it was already dramatically lower.
    - zxcmx 9y ago
      In percentage terms, didn't Australia's rate fall faster? It seems weird to say U.S. dropped "more" with these numbers.
      - FireBeyond 9y ago
strken 9y ago
Australian here. We didn't "ban firearms", we regulated them. I can get a license for a centrefire bolt-action rifle in about a month by filling in some paperwork and buying a safe, and unlicensed I'm allowed to shoot under the supervision of a license holder. There's a small-bore rifle range a 10 minute bike ride from my house and practically every farmer in the country owns a rifle or shotgun for pest control and a .22 for the kids. It's important not to overstate what our actual laws are. We have provisions for agriculture, sport, hunting, security guards, etc. and these provisions are not very hard to navigate.
refurb 9y ago
How common we're mass shootings in Australia before the ban? If they are super rare, you'd never know if it was the ban or just chance. Oh and guns weren't banned in Australia, just restricted. Plenty of guns still there.

thatswrong0 9y ago

Banning firearms in general won't work in America. There are already more guns than people in circulation, the right to own them is codified into the Constitution and requires an amendment to fix (and amendments are ridiculously hard to pass), and of course there's the huge section of the population that would probably rather die than let their right to own guns be infringed. Not to mention that we do have a giant border with Mexico to our south that would probably make any attempt to remove all guns from America pointless.

jazoom 9y ago
>Banning firearms in general won't work in America. Obligatory "not with that attitude".
celticninja 9y ago
>Banning firearms in general won't work in America. This is the go to reason that people give, but it just means they haven't tried. No one said it would be cheap or easy but it could be done. As for gun smuggling, the USA used to be the source of 80% of guns used in crimes in Canada and in Mexico it is 70%. https://www.quora.com/How-are-guns-smuggled-into-the-United-States https://www.quora.com/How-are-guns-smuggled-into-the-United-... https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/12/462781469/in-mexico-tens-of-thousands-of-illegal-guns-come-from-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/12/462781469... https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10771628/gun-violence-america-mexico https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/10771628/gun-violence-america-... So actually a gun ban in the USA would help both Canada and Mexico with their gun problems. In Mexico many of these guns end up in the hands of the cartels who are much more willing to use them than your usual criminals, and whilst they would still probably be able to obtain weapons they would not be able to do so in the same sort of volume and they would also have trouble locating ammunition.
- burger_moon 9y ago
  It worked get for alcohol prohibition. I'm sure it'll be about as easy for guns.
  - fatjokes 9y ago
    Do Americans love guns that much?? I mean, there are so many other toys to play with. Does owning a gun cause a nice buzz? Is it a social lubricant that makes everybody at a party happier when you bring it out? Does it have an ancient history that spans across the globe? Does it result in a chemical addiction? Haven't found a good replacement for alcohol that wasn't more illegal or harmful.
    - obsolete_ideas 9y ago
      Guns aren't toys. They are an important tool in America's system of checks and balances: Guns are not for shooting deer; guns are for shooting politicians. The 2nd Amendment is very clear; in fact, it's probably the clearest portion of the entire Constitution: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." In order to protect the freedom of each state from the imposition of some tyranny, it must be possible to gather groups of patriots who are armed with the highest quality equipment; therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. America was born out of armed revolution against a tyrannical government, and Americans are taught that they must be wary of enemies both foreign and domestic. To Americans, the government is at best a dangerous servant, and at worst a tyrannical master. The gun is known as "The Great Equalizer" for a reason. To restrict gun ownership is to transfer even more power from the weak (the individual) to the strong (the State); that is anathema to those who understand what it actually means to be an American.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - fyolnish 9y ago
        When is it appropriate to shoot a politician?
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Many of those guns are smuggled out to Latin America (guns for drugs trade), while the rest are owned by an increasingly small segment of the population. Mexico doesn’t mass produce enough guns to feed the American market in any significant way, and their gun laws are much more strict than ours. It’s the other way around: the bad guys in Mexico get most of our guns from us, the gun shops in the USA with the highest sales are near the border.
- jakeogh 9y ago
  Then Mexico should build another wall like the one on it's southern border. I'm serious, but the reason I have used from your comment is taking your assumptions as true. I'm all for the wall for a different reason; countries must control their borders or the people living there are not sovereign. I have been to Mexico a few times (it's an awesome place!), right near the border, and much further south, but I did not feel it was a safe place. I know enough people with stories that I would rather not try to tell here. In Mexico, only the criminals and police are armed. Cross the border to the US, and volla, we all are equals. You can watch nearly endless TY* of cartel shootouts in Mexico (on residential streets), that stuff is practically impossible here, the elderly person down the street has weapons capable of hitting a body 200+ meters away. Mexico will be much safer when it's not just the criminals in the general population who can defend themselves. It's going to be an interesting conversation when it's only US citizens that have DRM-free DMLS systems. *I didn't check today, but I bet the memory hole is working on that...

galieos_ghost 9y ago

London just passed New York in Homicide rate for the first time ever, doesn't seem to have worked too well.

yardie 9y ago
Yes, they’ve been cutting government services. Some parts of London are effectively lawless because there is not enough police to cover everywhere. Mental health, social services, youth and gang intervention have been underfunded.
- kelchm 9y ago
  Sure would be nice to have a gun to protect yourself when the police aren't able to.
- celticninja 9y ago
  No parts of London are effectively lawless. That's fox news leaking out of you.
martinpw 9y ago
That is based on severe cherry picking of data - just one month (February 2018) and small absolute numbers (11 vs 15). On longer sampling intervals the rate is still quite a bit higher in NY: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43628494 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43628494

rayiner 9y ago

Fun fact: after Australia enacted gun control and gun buybacks in 1996, murder rates in Australia went down slower than in the U.S. over that same period.

FireBeyond 9y ago
Australia, a country of 20M people, had 354 homicides (not just firearm related) in 1996, down to 282 ten years later. In 1997, it had a rate of 1.733:100,000, and by 2007, 1.2. In 1997, the US had a rate of 6.678:100,000, and by 2007, 5.7. We had a lot more room for improvement. And you're still nearly five times more likely to be murdered in the US than Australia. But hey, it says a whole lot about the narrative you'd like to push when you want to focus on that delta. "America got safer faster! (Just ignore the fact it was very far worse and still far less safe!)". I think you're likely to find the homicide rate asymptotically approaches zero, and as such it would be hard for Australia to improve at the same rate as the US. I'm not sure what correlation you can show to "firearm control doesn't work" from that. Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?end=2015&locations=US-AU&start=1997 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?end=2015...
- rayiner 9y ago
  You’ve got the burden of proof wrong. Before limiting citizens’ freedoms, you need evidence that gun control works. Pointing to places like Australia, which already had dramatically lower homicide rates, then saw rates drop more slowly than in the US over that time, doesn’t help prove that point. Gun control can’t be the reason homicides are so low in Australia compared to the US; it was already dramatically lower.
  - zxcmx 9y ago
    In percentage terms, didn't Australia's rate fall faster? It seems weird to say U.S. dropped "more" with these numbers.
    - FireBeyond 9y ago

strken 9y ago

Australian here. We didn't "ban firearms", we regulated them. I can get a license for a centrefire bolt-action rifle in about a month by filling in some paperwork and buying a safe, and unlicensed I'm allowed to shoot under the supervision of a license holder. There's a small-bore rifle range a 10 minute bike ride from my house and practically every farmer in the country owns a rifle or shotgun for pest control and a .22 for the kids. It's important not to overstate what our actual laws are. We have provisions for agriculture, sport, hunting, security guards, etc. and these provisions are not very hard to navigate.

refurb 9y ago

How common we're mass shootings in Australia before the ban? If they are super rare, you'd never know if it was the ban or just chance. Oh and guns weren't banned in Australia, just restricted. Plenty of guns still there.