7 ms·

The vast majority of gun violence of all types, suicides, gang murders, mass shootings, domestic violence etc. are committed with hand guns. Hand gun ownership

The vast majority of gun violence of all types, suicides, gang murders, mass shootings, domestic violence etc. are committed with hand guns. Hand gun ownership popularity is at a high in the US across many demographics. But assault rifle bans are the most popular form of gun control, probably because of the popularity of hand guns.

remarkEon 7y ago
>probably because of the popularity of hand guns. I think it's more that most of those advocating for these rifle bans have limited or no experience with any firearm, let a lone rifles. Most of these things just look scary to people who are unfamiliar with them, even though they'd be functionally equivalent to rifles with wooden stocks and wooden foregrips. Edit: clarifying word
- kasey_junk 7y ago
  It’s a common contention of the gun advocacy community that it’s ignorance that drives awb, but that flies in the face of the evidence that veterans are disproportionately represented in elected officials, police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation & its a subject that is easily researchable. I think it’s more likely that the people who are politically motivated around this issue represent the extremes and that leads to weird compromises.
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    I'm not sure what this has to do with my point. Veterans generally don't support more gun control (I am one), but you're right that political motivations can cause weird bedfellows. Anyway, I wasn't really talking about politicians as it were ... more the general public.
  - stevenicr 7y ago
    when "police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation" - they could have their own protection interest in mind more than yours. When they choose to carry 'high capacity magazines', SBRs (real pia to get for non-leo) - and other weaponry, it is understood these things help them be safer... If grandma is not allowed to be safer because random bad guy - you have to wonder, or should maybe.
    - hellisothers 7y ago
      Twice now “grandma” has been employed as a reason assault rifles should be legal. Come on, this has nothing to do with a fictional grandmother with a scopes rifle. It’s like some talking point gone awry.
      - mlyle 7y ago
        A scoped rifle? vs. assault rifle? I mean, sometimes these concepts are combined, but generally a modern military-style rifle has iron sights or at most a reflex sight. I think your comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding.
      - stevenicr 7y ago
        I mentioned large capacity magazines, forward grips, and a red dot sight. Not 'scopes' - which could mean many things, but I believe are more often referring to 4x,10, 16, etc magnified scopes that are more often used for long range hunting.. My point was that some of the 'assault rifle bans' are trying to stop simple things like a grip addon, a collapsible stock, an over 10rd magazine - any one of those things could make the whole thing illegal.. and I would want grandma to have access to those things, all of them. It would make her, and her neighbors safer. This is not fictional in any way shape or form. Not too long ago a grandma near me went to take the shooting class with a 38 revolver.. it hurt her wrists after a few shots and everyone quickly realized she would not be able to perform the amount of firing to do the practice and the test with one. If she had been given a police issue SBR MP5 with muzzle break, forward grip, collapsible stock, laser and red dot - she would be able to plink accurately all day long. These things they want to ban are actually safety features - but people can't see that. I may have to make a few grandma videos to show this maybe.
        ikt 7y ago
        I personally would want my Grandma to live in a safe neighbourhood, one that doesn't require her to have a weapon to defend herself. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-gun-deaths-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-... Their findings, published Wednesday in the prestigious American Journal of Medicine, debunk the historic belief among many people in the United States that guns make a country safer, they say. On the contrary, the US, with the most guns per head in the world, has the highest rate of deaths from firearms, while Japan, which has the lowest rate of gun ownership, has the least.
  - bsanr2 7y ago
    Right. The point that gets missed is that the contention is often less about the nuances of any particular firearm's capabilities and more about the common intentions of their use. EVERY gun is violent in the hands of someone trying to commit violence. Yet, mass shooters (who kill people in a particularly cruel manner, randomly, and that which is difficult for the average person to guard against) gravitate to assault rifles, for whatever reason. So people want them banned. Will that stop mass killings, from a functional perspective? Probably not. But it does remove a step in the psychic progression from normalcy to a massacre. Since the whole problem is a dysfunction of our collective processing of the lives we face, maybe the disruption to that flow a ban would represent is enough. Some say we're afraid of the big scary rifle; I say, sure, and a mass shooter feels empowered by it. As an addendum, I have to imagine that GRAs enjoy this debate, because as long as we're stuck on it, we don't have to talk about how access to handguns increases the successful suicide attempt rate.
    - masonic 7y ago
      mass shooters... gravitate to assault rifles Absolutely false. The vast majority of "mass shootings" are with handguns.
      - bsanr2 7y ago
        We have different definitions of mass shooters. I assume you advocate strongly, with great investments of time, energy, and money, to alleviate the ones I would say you're including erroneously, yes?
        blaser-waffle 7y ago
        Slick reply, but a mocking, obsequious attempt to brush the definitions aside changes nothing: the parent comment is correct. > We have different definitions of mass shooters. You're almost certainly talking about high profile shooting incidents with broad media coverage, that drive what is essentially a moral panic. Parent comment is referring to incidents where 3+ people get shot, which often do not make the national and international media, and are predominately carried out with handguns. The shootings last August that got a lot of attention are a great example. Couple of back-to-back mass shooting incidents in TX and Ohio got a lot of press... even though just the week before something like 34 people got shot in Chicago over the course of 2 days; hardly a word in the press outside of Chi-town.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  Agreed. A 9 MM rifle vs a 9 MM pistol both semiautomatic the main difference is accuracy and thats due to barrel length. You wont magically get bullets out faster. I feel like anybody wanting to pass gun laws in congress should take basic firearms courses. It takes a lot for me to be in the range as a newcomer and just shoot. I am convinced the issue isnt guns its the culture / mental state of the person with the gun. Worse yet you are disarming people who had a better chance against criminals who have access to worse weapons and will likely go for those.
  - kasey_junk 7y ago
    This is literally untrue. 9mm ammo comes out of a longer barrel at higher velocity than out of a shorter. http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/9luger.html http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/9luger.html
    - giancarlostoro 7y ago
      But it's still reliant on trigger pull. How quickly you shoot rounds is roughly similar, depending on the reset trigger of the gun. In some cases you get more rounds out quicker from a pistol, they might not have the same velocity or accuracy however. Edit: In other words I'm talking about rate of bullets fired per second, and not how fast they leave the clip / magazine which is what you're talking about.
    - remarkEon 7y ago
      Velocity isn't really what you care about though. I understand the point you're trying to make, but that table really points out that the type of the round you're using has a greater effect on velocity than the barrel length itself. The linked muzzle energy plot, which is what you really care about, shows this quite well, where we stay fairly stable for all tested rounds and fall off significantly at barrel lengths shorter than 7".
      - EForEndeavour 7y ago
        Muzzle energy is defined as the bullet's kinetic energy upon exit, which is proportional to the square of velocity, which means barrel length necessarily affects muzzle energy more than muzzle velocity. From quick Google searches, 9mm pistol barrels are around 4-5 inches long, 9mm rifles around 16". This has a major impact on muzzle velocity, and an even greater impact on muzzle energy.
stevenicr 7y ago
I think it's because it's easier to divide and conquer with 'big scary assault rifles meant for the battlefield' - it helps gather some people who are in the middle, and agree with Heller in that people should be able to defend themselves especially at home... if you say assault rifle bad - no one needs one to hunt with - you get some people nodding... so it's easier to pass and claim a victory lap. I saw a definition recently that said assault rifle bans.. any rifle with at least one 'military type accessory' - that wording is part of the charade. I'm guessing a forward grip, maybe a red dot would be in that? Frankly if the grandma next door needs to use a weapon, I would hope that she is not limited by regulations such as that - I would like her to have as good of a grip and sighting options as absolutely possible. I'd rather her have an easily controllable SBR type of weapon, expandable stock and maybe 30 rounds of 22 winmag - this would be much safer for her and for the neighbors I think if something went down... JB's double barrell shotgun suggestion would not be the best protection for many grandmas, imho. so maybe 'because of the popularity of hand guns' is that in a way, in that people in the middle want them.. I think some people will read that as in 'the popularity' is causing lots of shootings and that makes gun control popular. maybe. all situations are different not an exhaustive suggestion(s) thought processes atm. ymmv.
- everdev 7y ago
  > Frankly if the grandma next door needs to use a weapon, I would hope that she is not limited by regulations such as that - I would like her to have as good of a grip and sighting options as absolutely possible. I'd rather her have an easily controllable SBR type of weapon, expandable stock and maybe 30 rounds of 22 winmag - this would be much safer for her and for the neighbors I think if something went down... JB's double barrell shotgun suggestion would not be the best protection for many grandmas, imho. Is this a real risk in parts of the country where old people need serious fire power to defend themselves? Maybe it is and I just haven't been exposed to it. For me, I'd feel more nervous with someone with deteriorating memory and eyesight handling a lethal weapon next door.
  - anon9001 7y ago
    > Is this a real risk in parts of the country where old people need serious fire power to defend themselves? I don't think the way to reason about this is based on "serious fire power" vs some other kind of weapon that you feel is more acceptable. All guns can be lethal. If grandma feels unsafe, she might get a gun. I can understand how older people might want firepower when they know they can't physically fend off an attacker. If you accept grandma's right to be armed, would you rather she use a more or less dangerous gun? Most gun controls make the weapon less safe. It's similar to how people think sharp knives are more dangerous, but they're actually much safer than dull knives. The way to think about it is that the round is doing most of the work. The gun is just a delivery system for the round, and besides fully automatic weapons, every other weapon choice is about safety, accuracy, and reliability. A "Short Barrel Rifle" or "Short Barrel Shotgun" is easier to operate, and therefore more safe than a non-NFA rifle. They were regulated to make people feel better, not to add safety. The velocity of NFA SBRs is actually lower than the velocity of a bullet leaving a non-NFA 16" barrel. A silencer is not silent, it's just hearing protection, but also requires an NFA tax stamp. They don't sound like they do in the movies, and there's no mistaking it's a gunshot. Expandable stocks and foregrips are scary looking, but the whole point of them is to gain accuracy, which makes the gun safer. These are usually legal, but there are silly regulations around these too. Larger magazines allow you to focus on your threat instead of counting your bullets. For now, these are legal, but banning magazines with large capacity is a common talking point. The reason all of these items look scary is because we see military with them. But even in the military, they're not to make the guns more lethal. The whole point is operational safety. If you don't think anyone should be allowed to have a gun, that's actually a more defensible position. If people are allowed to have guns, they should be allowed to have any gun and any gun attachment that improves their safety.
rayiner 7y ago
Not only that, support for banning hand guns has collapsed: https://news.gallup.com/poll/150341/record-low-favor-handgun-ban.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/150341/record-low-favor-handgun.... In 1959, 60% of people favored a handgun ban, to 36% opposed. By 2011 that had flipped to 73% opposed and just 26% in favor. People focus on rifles, which are responsible for relatively few deaths, because banning handguns is wildly unpopular. (Heck Kamala Harris owns a handgun.)
- baroffoos 7y ago
  Rifles have none of the legitimate uses that gun advocates go on about so its a low reward but 0 loss situation to ban them. Unless someone is proposing you need to defend your house against a zombie invasion.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    ? The majority of hunting is performed with rifles, though shotguns and pistols do have roles. This includes semi-automatic rifles. A big fraction of serious marksmanship is done with rifles, including multiple formats that depend upon semi-automatic rifles. There are many collectors of curios & relics of military and sporting history, which are overwhelmingly rifles. My brother kills trapped raccoons on his property with a rifle instead of drowning them because he feels it is more humane. There's a ton of legitimate sporting use, some defense use, and they are used much, much less in crime than handguns.
  - Jamwinner 7y ago
    Is this a super low effort troll?
  - jakeogh 7y ago
    The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with finding food.
daxorid 7y ago
The tinfoil hat interpretation is that rifles are far more effective in both battlefield (full barrel) and urban warfare (carbines) than sidearms, and confiscating them removes the last chance any populace has against its own government. Such that it's in the interest of despotic regimes to do so. Private ownership of battle rifles (c.f. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq insurgency) are pretty much the only (valid) defense against the "Lol you think you can fight a war against an adversary with drones and nukes?" argument.

remarkEon 7y ago

>probably because of the popularity of hand guns. I think it's more that most of those advocating for these rifle bans have limited or no experience with any firearm, let a lone rifles. Most of these things just look scary to people who are unfamiliar with them, even though they'd be functionally equivalent to rifles with wooden stocks and wooden foregrips. Edit: clarifying word

kasey_junk 7y ago
It’s a common contention of the gun advocacy community that it’s ignorance that drives awb, but that flies in the face of the evidence that veterans are disproportionately represented in elected officials, police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation & its a subject that is easily researchable. I think it’s more likely that the people who are politically motivated around this issue represent the extremes and that leads to weird compromises.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  I'm not sure what this has to do with my point. Veterans generally don't support more gun control (I am one), but you're right that political motivations can cause weird bedfellows. Anyway, I wasn't really talking about politicians as it were ... more the general public.
- stevenicr 7y ago
  when "police officers are consulted when drafting the legislation" - they could have their own protection interest in mind more than yours. When they choose to carry 'high capacity magazines', SBRs (real pia to get for non-leo) - and other weaponry, it is understood these things help them be safer... If grandma is not allowed to be safer because random bad guy - you have to wonder, or should maybe.
  - hellisothers 7y ago
    Twice now “grandma” has been employed as a reason assault rifles should be legal. Come on, this has nothing to do with a fictional grandmother with a scopes rifle. It’s like some talking point gone awry.
    - mlyle 7y ago
      A scoped rifle? vs. assault rifle? I mean, sometimes these concepts are combined, but generally a modern military-style rifle has iron sights or at most a reflex sight. I think your comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding.
    - stevenicr 7y ago
      I mentioned large capacity magazines, forward grips, and a red dot sight. Not 'scopes' - which could mean many things, but I believe are more often referring to 4x,10, 16, etc magnified scopes that are more often used for long range hunting.. My point was that some of the 'assault rifle bans' are trying to stop simple things like a grip addon, a collapsible stock, an over 10rd magazine - any one of those things could make the whole thing illegal.. and I would want grandma to have access to those things, all of them. It would make her, and her neighbors safer. This is not fictional in any way shape or form. Not too long ago a grandma near me went to take the shooting class with a 38 revolver.. it hurt her wrists after a few shots and everyone quickly realized she would not be able to perform the amount of firing to do the practice and the test with one. If she had been given a police issue SBR MP5 with muzzle break, forward grip, collapsible stock, laser and red dot - she would be able to plink accurately all day long. These things they want to ban are actually safety features - but people can't see that. I may have to make a few grandma videos to show this maybe.
      - ikt 7y ago
        I personally would want my Grandma to live in a safe neighbourhood, one that doesn't require her to have a weapon to defend herself. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-gun-deaths-study https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/gun-ownership-... Their findings, published Wednesday in the prestigious American Journal of Medicine, debunk the historic belief among many people in the United States that guns make a country safer, they say. On the contrary, the US, with the most guns per head in the world, has the highest rate of deaths from firearms, while Japan, which has the lowest rate of gun ownership, has the least.
- bsanr2 7y ago
  Right. The point that gets missed is that the contention is often less about the nuances of any particular firearm's capabilities and more about the common intentions of their use. EVERY gun is violent in the hands of someone trying to commit violence. Yet, mass shooters (who kill people in a particularly cruel manner, randomly, and that which is difficult for the average person to guard against) gravitate to assault rifles, for whatever reason. So people want them banned. Will that stop mass killings, from a functional perspective? Probably not. But it does remove a step in the psychic progression from normalcy to a massacre. Since the whole problem is a dysfunction of our collective processing of the lives we face, maybe the disruption to that flow a ban would represent is enough. Some say we're afraid of the big scary rifle; I say, sure, and a mass shooter feels empowered by it. As an addendum, I have to imagine that GRAs enjoy this debate, because as long as we're stuck on it, we don't have to talk about how access to handguns increases the successful suicide attempt rate.
  - masonic 7y ago
    mass shooters... gravitate to assault rifles Absolutely false. The vast majority of "mass shootings" are with handguns.
    - bsanr2 7y ago
      We have different definitions of mass shooters. I assume you advocate strongly, with great investments of time, energy, and money, to alleviate the ones I would say you're including erroneously, yes?
      - blaser-waffle 7y ago
        Slick reply, but a mocking, obsequious attempt to brush the definitions aside changes nothing: the parent comment is correct. > We have different definitions of mass shooters. You're almost certainly talking about high profile shooting incidents with broad media coverage, that drive what is essentially a moral panic. Parent comment is referring to incidents where 3+ people get shot, which often do not make the national and international media, and are predominately carried out with handguns. The shootings last August that got a lot of attention are a great example. Couple of back-to-back mass shooting incidents in TX and Ohio got a lot of press... even though just the week before something like 34 people got shot in Chicago over the course of 2 days; hardly a word in the press outside of Chi-town.
giancarlostoro 7y ago
Agreed. A 9 MM rifle vs a 9 MM pistol both semiautomatic the main difference is accuracy and thats due to barrel length. You wont magically get bullets out faster. I feel like anybody wanting to pass gun laws in congress should take basic firearms courses. It takes a lot for me to be in the range as a newcomer and just shoot. I am convinced the issue isnt guns its the culture / mental state of the person with the gun. Worse yet you are disarming people who had a better chance against criminals who have access to worse weapons and will likely go for those.
- kasey_junk 7y ago
  This is literally untrue. 9mm ammo comes out of a longer barrel at higher velocity than out of a shorter. http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/9luger.html http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com/9luger.html
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    But it's still reliant on trigger pull. How quickly you shoot rounds is roughly similar, depending on the reset trigger of the gun. In some cases you get more rounds out quicker from a pistol, they might not have the same velocity or accuracy however. Edit: In other words I'm talking about rate of bullets fired per second, and not how fast they leave the clip / magazine which is what you're talking about.
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    Velocity isn't really what you care about though. I understand the point you're trying to make, but that table really points out that the type of the round you're using has a greater effect on velocity than the barrel length itself. The linked muzzle energy plot, which is what you really care about, shows this quite well, where we stay fairly stable for all tested rounds and fall off significantly at barrel lengths shorter than 7".
    - EForEndeavour 7y ago
      Muzzle energy is defined as the bullet's kinetic energy upon exit, which is proportional to the square of velocity, which means barrel length necessarily affects muzzle energy more than muzzle velocity. From quick Google searches, 9mm pistol barrels are around 4-5 inches long, 9mm rifles around 16". This has a major impact on muzzle velocity, and an even greater impact on muzzle energy.

stevenicr 7y ago

I think it's because it's easier to divide and conquer with 'big scary assault rifles meant for the battlefield' - it helps gather some people who are in the middle, and agree with Heller in that people should be able to defend themselves especially at home... if you say assault rifle bad - no one needs one to hunt with - you get some people nodding... so it's easier to pass and claim a victory lap. I saw a definition recently that said assault rifle bans.. any rifle with at least one 'military type accessory' - that wording is part of the charade. I'm guessing a forward grip, maybe a red dot would be in that? Frankly if the grandma next door needs to use a weapon, I would hope that she is not limited by regulations such as that - I would like her to have as good of a grip and sighting options as absolutely possible. I'd rather her have an easily controllable SBR type of weapon, expandable stock and maybe 30 rounds of 22 winmag - this would be much safer for her and for the neighbors I think if something went down... JB's double barrell shotgun suggestion would not be the best protection for many grandmas, imho. so maybe 'because of the popularity of hand guns' is that in a way, in that people in the middle want them.. I think some people will read that as in 'the popularity' is causing lots of shootings and that makes gun control popular. maybe. all situations are different not an exhaustive suggestion(s) thought processes atm. ymmv.

everdev 7y ago
> Frankly if the grandma next door needs to use a weapon, I would hope that she is not limited by regulations such as that - I would like her to have as good of a grip and sighting options as absolutely possible. I'd rather her have an easily controllable SBR type of weapon, expandable stock and maybe 30 rounds of 22 winmag - this would be much safer for her and for the neighbors I think if something went down... JB's double barrell shotgun suggestion would not be the best protection for many grandmas, imho. Is this a real risk in parts of the country where old people need serious fire power to defend themselves? Maybe it is and I just haven't been exposed to it. For me, I'd feel more nervous with someone with deteriorating memory and eyesight handling a lethal weapon next door.
- anon9001 7y ago
  > Is this a real risk in parts of the country where old people need serious fire power to defend themselves? I don't think the way to reason about this is based on "serious fire power" vs some other kind of weapon that you feel is more acceptable. All guns can be lethal. If grandma feels unsafe, she might get a gun. I can understand how older people might want firepower when they know they can't physically fend off an attacker. If you accept grandma's right to be armed, would you rather she use a more or less dangerous gun? Most gun controls make the weapon less safe. It's similar to how people think sharp knives are more dangerous, but they're actually much safer than dull knives. The way to think about it is that the round is doing most of the work. The gun is just a delivery system for the round, and besides fully automatic weapons, every other weapon choice is about safety, accuracy, and reliability. A "Short Barrel Rifle" or "Short Barrel Shotgun" is easier to operate, and therefore more safe than a non-NFA rifle. They were regulated to make people feel better, not to add safety. The velocity of NFA SBRs is actually lower than the velocity of a bullet leaving a non-NFA 16" barrel. A silencer is not silent, it's just hearing protection, but also requires an NFA tax stamp. They don't sound like they do in the movies, and there's no mistaking it's a gunshot. Expandable stocks and foregrips are scary looking, but the whole point of them is to gain accuracy, which makes the gun safer. These are usually legal, but there are silly regulations around these too. Larger magazines allow you to focus on your threat instead of counting your bullets. For now, these are legal, but banning magazines with large capacity is a common talking point. The reason all of these items look scary is because we see military with them. But even in the military, they're not to make the guns more lethal. The whole point is operational safety. If you don't think anyone should be allowed to have a gun, that's actually a more defensible position. If people are allowed to have guns, they should be allowed to have any gun and any gun attachment that improves their safety.

rayiner 7y ago

Not only that, support for banning hand guns has collapsed: https://news.gallup.com/poll/150341/record-low-favor-handgun-ban.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/150341/record-low-favor-handgun.... In 1959, 60% of people favored a handgun ban, to 36% opposed. By 2011 that had flipped to 73% opposed and just 26% in favor. People focus on rifles, which are responsible for relatively few deaths, because banning handguns is wildly unpopular. (Heck Kamala Harris owns a handgun.)

baroffoos 7y ago
Rifles have none of the legitimate uses that gun advocates go on about so its a low reward but 0 loss situation to ban them. Unless someone is proposing you need to defend your house against a zombie invasion.
- mlyle 7y ago
  ? The majority of hunting is performed with rifles, though shotguns and pistols do have roles. This includes semi-automatic rifles. A big fraction of serious marksmanship is done with rifles, including multiple formats that depend upon semi-automatic rifles. There are many collectors of curios & relics of military and sporting history, which are overwhelmingly rifles. My brother kills trapped raccoons on his property with a rifle instead of drowning them because he feels it is more humane. There's a ton of legitimate sporting use, some defense use, and they are used much, much less in crime than handguns.
- Jamwinner 7y ago
  Is this a super low effort troll?
- jakeogh 7y ago
  The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with finding food.

daxorid 7y ago

The tinfoil hat interpretation is that rifles are far more effective in both battlefield (full barrel) and urban warfare (carbines) than sidearms, and confiscating them removes the last chance any populace has against its own government. Such that it's in the interest of despotic regimes to do so. Private ownership of battle rifles (c.f. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq insurgency) are pretty much the only (valid) defense against the "Lol you think you can fight a war against an adversary with drones and nukes?" argument.