5 ms·

I'm not proposing any policy. Just pointing to a state of the world that I think would cause less shooting.

ilove_banh_mi 8y ago
Chicago already has some of the strictest anti-gun policies in the US. [edit] They had, in effect and for decades, a ban on the sale of guns (requiring registration but then not actually allowing it). Some of the restrictions have been disallowed in recent years due to conflicting with the Constitution. This may be why the level of violence in that particular town is of interest to many social and political commentators.
- netgusto 8y ago
  But are guns illegal, though? From what I can gather [1], they're not. Some semi-automatic firearms, considered as assault weapons, are illegal in Chicago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Illinois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Illinois
  - towndrunk 8y ago
    So are you saying the Gangs will follow the laws?
    - netgusto 8y ago
      Not spontaneously, no. But law enforcement are more likely to be able to make them follow the law if there's actually a law to be followed.
    - abrahamepton 8y ago
      The argument for gun control has never been that criminals will just obey the gun control laws. The point is, and has always been, and will always be, to reduce the number of guns available. Fewer guns === fewer shootings. Axiomatic. Of course, it's substantially easier said than done. But the mechanism by which gun control reduces gun crimes really doesn't require any criminal to spontaneously follow the law for some reason. It's a public-health measure, like vaccinating kids.
      - jeffdavis 8y ago
        "Fewer guns === fewer shootings. Axiomatic." That's not an axiom. Left as an exercise: find a subset of guns such that, if they were destroyed, is likely to increase the number of shootings.
        abrahamepton 8y ago
        Yes, I would argue it is in fact an axiom: a statement that is regarded as being established or self-evidently true. Since basically all of the evidence we have available to us suggests that fewer guns lead to fewer shootings, and more guns lead to more shootings; since the only real objections to that logic are rather contrived "find the subset of guns such that removing them leads to more shootings" logical toys with little if any foundation in the real world; and since it's, I mean, just clearly correct - I'm curious why you think such a proposition is not obviously true. Clearly there is a debate about the effectiveness of gun control in America, the one country on the planet that has yet to make up its mind about this. However, I would suggest that such a debate is not being carried out in good faith.
        21 8y ago
        > more guns lead to more shootings If only it was so simple: > Switzerland hasn't had a mass shooting since 2001, when a man stormed the local parliament in Zug, killing 14 people and then himself. > The country has about 2 million privately owned guns in a nation of 8.3 million people. In 2016, the country had 47 homicides with firearms. The country's overall murder rate is near zero. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/switzerland-high-rates-gun-ownership-why-doesnt-no-mass-shootings-a8230606.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/switzerlan...
        abrahamepton 8y ago
        Oh hey look: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-an... So: Switzerland vs "the United States and across high-income countries"; Switzerland vs "data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s"; Switzerland vs "across 50 states over a ten-year period (1988-1997)"; Switzerland vs "across states, 2001-2003"; Switzerland vs "In high gun states, LEOs are 3 times more likely to be murdered than LEOs working in low-gun states." So. It is pretty simple: Switzerland, as in basically every other aspect of its existence, is an outlier. Social science is not the same thing as mathematical theory, I grant you, and so what is axiomatic in the world is not necessarily as tidy as what is axiomatic in the middle of proving a theorem. Nevertheless: the evidence is clear that more guns lead to more shootings. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear on this common-sense point, and there's no particularly compelling counterexample since, again, Switzerland is quite unlike the United States in many ways. So: it is an axiom that more guns lead to more shootings. Except, perhaps, for the Swiss.
- abrahamepton 8y ago
  It's somewhat ironic, I suppose, but it's also the case that those laws, when enforceable (some have been struck down), are a bit useless in the midst of a sea of free-flowing gun sales across the midwest. Drive 90 minutes to Indiana and get whatever you need and then drive back. Not sure how any law a state or city could pass is supposed to make up for that kind of problem.

Chicago already has some of the strictest anti-gun policies in the US. [edit] They had, in effect and for decades, a ban on the sale of guns (requiring registration but then not actually allowing it). Some of the restrictions have been disallowed in recent years due to conflicting with the Constitution. This may be why the level of violence in that particular town is of interest to many social and political commentators.

netgusto 8y ago
But are guns illegal, though? From what I can gather [1], they're not. Some semi-automatic firearms, considered as assault weapons, are illegal in Chicago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Illinois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Illinois
- towndrunk 8y ago
  So are you saying the Gangs will follow the laws?
  - netgusto 8y ago
    Not spontaneously, no. But law enforcement are more likely to be able to make them follow the law if there's actually a law to be followed.
  - abrahamepton 8y ago
    The argument for gun control has never been that criminals will just obey the gun control laws. The point is, and has always been, and will always be, to reduce the number of guns available. Fewer guns === fewer shootings. Axiomatic. Of course, it's substantially easier said than done. But the mechanism by which gun control reduces gun crimes really doesn't require any criminal to spontaneously follow the law for some reason. It's a public-health measure, like vaccinating kids.
    - jeffdavis 8y ago
      "Fewer guns === fewer shootings. Axiomatic." That's not an axiom. Left as an exercise: find a subset of guns such that, if they were destroyed, is likely to increase the number of shootings.
      - abrahamepton 8y ago
        Yes, I would argue it is in fact an axiom: a statement that is regarded as being established or self-evidently true. Since basically all of the evidence we have available to us suggests that fewer guns lead to fewer shootings, and more guns lead to more shootings; since the only real objections to that logic are rather contrived "find the subset of guns such that removing them leads to more shootings" logical toys with little if any foundation in the real world; and since it's, I mean, just clearly correct - I'm curious why you think such a proposition is not obviously true. Clearly there is a debate about the effectiveness of gun control in America, the one country on the planet that has yet to make up its mind about this. However, I would suggest that such a debate is not being carried out in good faith.
        21 8y ago
        > more guns lead to more shootings If only it was so simple: > Switzerland hasn't had a mass shooting since 2001, when a man stormed the local parliament in Zug, killing 14 people and then himself. > The country has about 2 million privately owned guns in a nation of 8.3 million people. In 2016, the country had 47 homicides with firearms. The country's overall murder rate is near zero. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/switzerland-high-rates-gun-ownership-why-doesnt-no-mass-shootings-a8230606.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/switzerlan...
        abrahamepton 8y ago
        Oh hey look: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-an... So: Switzerland vs "the United States and across high-income countries"; Switzerland vs "data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s"; Switzerland vs "across 50 states over a ten-year period (1988-1997)"; Switzerland vs "across states, 2001-2003"; Switzerland vs "In high gun states, LEOs are 3 times more likely to be murdered than LEOs working in low-gun states." So. It is pretty simple: Switzerland, as in basically every other aspect of its existence, is an outlier. Social science is not the same thing as mathematical theory, I grant you, and so what is axiomatic in the world is not necessarily as tidy as what is axiomatic in the middle of proving a theorem. Nevertheless: the evidence is clear that more guns lead to more shootings. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear on this common-sense point, and there's no particularly compelling counterexample since, again, Switzerland is quite unlike the United States in many ways. So: it is an axiom that more guns lead to more shootings. Except, perhaps, for the Swiss.
abrahamepton 8y ago
It's somewhat ironic, I suppose, but it's also the case that those laws, when enforceable (some have been struck down), are a bit useless in the midst of a sea of free-flowing gun sales across the midwest. Drive 90 minutes to Indiana and get whatever you need and then drive back. Not sure how any law a state or city could pass is supposed to make up for that kind of problem.