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"My conclusion has always been that the gun violence problems in US is largely a culture problem." I would strongly argue against this. Swiss gun law is very d

"My conclusion has always been that the gun violence problems in US is largely a culture problem." I would strongly argue against this. Swiss gun law is very different from US, please read my five points above. Do you think US gun violence would decrease if they adopted those points? In my opinion yes. In my opinion the conservatives, nationalists and the National Rifle Association fight against any tighter regulations that would probably save thousands of lives.

adsjhdashkj 6y ago
I very likely agree with you on every gun ppoint, but i do have a question / counter often raised to me - that i don't have to answer to: How would tight regulations like that look in a large country already flooded with weapons of all shapes and sizes? I know multiple pro-gun people who seem to compose a large percentage of their pro-gun belief system around the foundation of the inability to remove them. Ie any bad guy who ever wants a gun will always have it (because there's so many), so give more guns to the good people. What are your thoughts there? I don't really have a counter.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  You need political will. - Refuse sales of ammunition without proof of gun purchase and registration. - Refuse gun purchase for specific gun types and if a person already has a certain number of guns. - Mandate and enforce training before gun purchases, with obligatory re-training every X years. Checked at every purchase of ammo and guns. No training, no sale. - Mandatory licensing for open carry. Mandatory army-level training for concealed carry. With mandatory re-training. - Buyback and exchange plans for existing weapons. - Huge fines (not jail time, fines) for non-compliance. Money is a much bigger deterrent than jail time.
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    You do all this and then find out that gun violence didn't decrease. Everyone will say it worked, but upon closer inspection it is mostly massaged stats. You'll find things like suicides being counted in the statistics for gun violence. Then what? Do you think anyone would be willing to roll back something like this?
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      Europe: 500 million people.
  - refurb 6y ago
    CA has most of these already. They just instituted a requirement for a background check for ammo purchases. One of the biggest problems is your last point - non-compliance isn’t really enforced. If you ask your friend to buy a gun for you because you’re not eligible, the dealer might stop the transaction, but there is a very low likelihood there will be any police follow up.
    - agensaequivocum 6y ago
      That is a federal crime and there are absolutely cases that have been prosecuted. I would not mess around with the ATF.
      - refurb 6y ago
        It is a federal law and occasionally they prosecute the most egregious examples, but I've heard from many gun dealers that when they suspect a straw purchase and report it, the ATF follows up maybe 1% of the time.
        agensaequivocum 6y ago
        Or when both parties passed the background check. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abramski_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abramski_v._United_States
        refurb 6y ago
        Jeeze, they even went after a former police officer? Not saying former cops should get a pass, but you’d think they’d try and make an example out of someone involved in a criminal operation. The ATF/DOJ loves to make examples out of people even when the case is pretty weak.
  - jon-wood 6y ago
    The first point is the key one, but I’d go further, no ammunition sales without passing the new regulations on gun ownership. You can keep your gun, and any ammo you have now, but no reloads until you’re properly authenticated.
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      Yes, I was thinking the same, too
  - agensaequivocum 6y ago
    All of that is repugnant to the constitution and our natural rights. It will also do nothing to stop violence. One comment regarding the term "Buyback", the government never owned them they can not "buy" them back. It is simply a euphemism for confiscation. Moreover, you can go to pretty much any gun shop or pawnshop to sell a gun you do not want.
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      > All of that is repugnant to the constitution and our natural rights. It will also do nothing to stop violence. Ahahahha what
- dsomers 6y ago
  I honestly don’t like U.S. gun culture at all, but I grew up across from Michigan in Canada and this argument always seemed true. It’s just such a hard problem because of the huge number of guns plus the number of owners the seem to indicate you’d have to kill them to take their guns. It seems like a blood bath waiting to happen unfortunately. I hope I’m wrong.
- katbyte 6y ago
  The bad people only need guns because the good people carry them around? How often does having a gun out and about save lives? Not prevent a robbery but save a life? How many times does it escalate a situation?
  - pdonis 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use
  - skinkestek 6y ago
    A sibling comment has already posted a link to Wikipedia. I couldn't see it mentioned immediately on Wikipedia and it kind of falls outside of the scope of that article too so I'll mention that in addition to people directly preventing crime by pulling a gun IIRC there also seems to be less attempts at crime in areas were there are lots of legal guns. I think rayiner hints at/mentions that somewhere above.
082349872349872 6y ago
Compare the level of violence in the (religiously-motivated) swiss Civil War (mid nineteenth century) with the level of violence in the (slavery-motivated) US Civil War (mid nineteenth century). That's part of my argument for culture. US gun violence probably would decrease if they adopted the swiss system, but good luck getting people who think a two-day hunting license course infringes their 2A rights to agree to a two-year process involving written, oral, and practical tests.
skinkestek 6y ago
Your points are reasonable. But remember: the US is what it is. There is an insane amount of guns floating around already. My suggestion is the "Norwegian model" from now on and going forward: to get anything except a manually reloaded rifle or a (max 2 cartridge) shotgun you need a clean record with the police + (and here comes the interesting part:) you need a recommendation from a local shooting club. Oh, and before buying any hunting gun at all there's a mandatory 50 hours training. I'd recommend trying something similar in the US: tell NRA "we want you to help us". Parts of HN might hate NRA all they want but my understanding is a good chunk of the people in NRA would love to keep weapons out of the hands of crazy people as every criminal shooting hurts peaceful owners as well.
zdragnar 6y ago
Most law-abiding gun owners do not end up misusing them. Aside from sensationalized media coverage, much of the gun violence in our most violent cities (Boston, Chicago, NYC, etc) would not go down with new laws, because many of the crimes are perpetrated by people who are already violating gun laws (not allowed to posses them, illegal modifications, etc). Unfortunately, with police departments being defunded or restricted, illegal gun ownership and use will only rise over time.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > Most law-abiding gun owners do not end up misusing them. Well, yeah. Most non-murderers don't murder, too.
  - amadeuspagel 6y ago
    In this context, it's pretty clear that law-abiding gun owner means someone who owns a gun legally, so the statement isn't tautological.
  - zdragnar 6y ago
    Murder has generally always been illegal, yet it hasn't stopped murders from happening. Making new gun laws about how many bullets you get from your military service or how you can transport them won't stop criminals from using them to commit further crimes. As someone else pointed out, you can still buy ammunition in Switzerland. There's plenty of access to guns. The difference is absolutely one of culture, which is what my point was.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Most law-abiding gun owners do not end up misusing them. You should probably add that most US gun owners are law-abiding gun owners.
- bwanab 6y ago
  None of the three cities you mention are even in the top ten of most violent cities and only Chicago (at 17) is in the top 25.
rayiner 6y ago
How do you square that opinion with the observation that some of the places with the loosest gun regulations (Oregon, Idaho) also have some of the lowest homicide rates? In Idaho, something like 60%+ of households own guns. But the homicide rate in the capital city of Boise is at Scandinavian levels, 1/10 of the US average. Utah also has high gun ownership and low gun homicides. (Note that this way of looking at the data gets around the notion that you can’t draw conclusions from homicide rates in cities with high control because guns freely flow into them from elsewhere.)
- Krustopolis 6y ago
  If your statistics are correct, that lends credence to the old saw, "An armed society is a polite society." But that's likely predicated on everything thinking that everyone else is armed (which in high gun control areas would not be the case). Sort of like nuclear weapons' "mutually assured destruction."
  - oblio 6y ago
    Yet some of what people commonly referred to polite societies barely have guns and the opposite can be said for those with lots of guns. The exceptions for the latter category being countries with high external national risk or no standing army.
- brnt 6y ago
  Maybe the sparseness of the population plays a significant role. Its a lot easier to develop conflicts in more populated areas.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    That’s why I used Boise as an example.
- sorokod 6y ago
  By treating statistics with respect (so no cherry picking), by recognising that violence involving firearms has more then one cause. As to Oregon, consider this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umpqua_Community_College_shooting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umpqua_Community_College_sho... in the context of easily available firearms.
refurb 6y ago
One of the talking points of the NRA is that the US has many gun laws that aren’t really enforced all that well. The NRA agrees that you shouldn’t be able to buy a guy if you have mental problems, drug problems, aren’t in the US legally, criminal history, etc. The only one restriction that is strongly enforced is the criminal history because it’s easy to do a check. But the system for mental health checks is a patchwork across states. And to layer on, if someone does violate these laws, there is often no punishment. Straw purchases are a good example - it usually falls on the dealer to stop the transaction, but there is rarely any police follow-up.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  Straw purchasers do get convicted when someone is killed.
  - refurb 6y ago
    True. They certainly do prosecute some straw purchases. But I guess my point would be - if they actually followed up on all straw purchase attempts (even just a call from the ATF saying “yeah, that’s illegal, don’t do that”) you could at least say the law is being enforced. Right now the most likely outcome is the dealer just refusing the sale. You’re free to tighten up your game and try another dealer.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
I wonder how much of the US gun violence is a problem with guns, and how much of it is a problem with crime. Despair and poverty without a perspective breeds crime. Switzerland doesn't have much of that.

adsjhdashkj 6y ago

I very likely agree with you on every gun ppoint, but i do have a question / counter often raised to me - that i don't have to answer to: How would tight regulations like that look in a large country already flooded with weapons of all shapes and sizes? I know multiple pro-gun people who seem to compose a large percentage of their pro-gun belief system around the foundation of the inability to remove them. Ie any bad guy who ever wants a gun will always have it (because there's so many), so give more guns to the good people. What are your thoughts there? I don't really have a counter.

dmitriid 6y ago
You need political will. - Refuse sales of ammunition without proof of gun purchase and registration. - Refuse gun purchase for specific gun types and if a person already has a certain number of guns. - Mandate and enforce training before gun purchases, with obligatory re-training every X years. Checked at every purchase of ammo and guns. No training, no sale. - Mandatory licensing for open carry. Mandatory army-level training for concealed carry. With mandatory re-training. - Buyback and exchange plans for existing weapons. - Huge fines (not jail time, fines) for non-compliance. Money is a much bigger deterrent than jail time.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  You do all this and then find out that gun violence didn't decrease. Everyone will say it worked, but upon closer inspection it is mostly massaged stats. You'll find things like suicides being counted in the statistics for gun violence. Then what? Do you think anyone would be willing to roll back something like this?
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    Europe: 500 million people.
- refurb 6y ago
  CA has most of these already. They just instituted a requirement for a background check for ammo purchases. One of the biggest problems is your last point - non-compliance isn’t really enforced. If you ask your friend to buy a gun for you because you’re not eligible, the dealer might stop the transaction, but there is a very low likelihood there will be any police follow up.
  - agensaequivocum 6y ago
    That is a federal crime and there are absolutely cases that have been prosecuted. I would not mess around with the ATF.
    - refurb 6y ago
      It is a federal law and occasionally they prosecute the most egregious examples, but I've heard from many gun dealers that when they suspect a straw purchase and report it, the ATF follows up maybe 1% of the time.
      - agensaequivocum 6y ago
        Or when both parties passed the background check. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abramski_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abramski_v._United_States
        refurb 6y ago
        Jeeze, they even went after a former police officer? Not saying former cops should get a pass, but you’d think they’d try and make an example out of someone involved in a criminal operation. The ATF/DOJ loves to make examples out of people even when the case is pretty weak.
- jon-wood 6y ago
  The first point is the key one, but I’d go further, no ammunition sales without passing the new regulations on gun ownership. You can keep your gun, and any ammo you have now, but no reloads until you’re properly authenticated.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    Yes, I was thinking the same, too
- agensaequivocum 6y ago
  All of that is repugnant to the constitution and our natural rights. It will also do nothing to stop violence. One comment regarding the term "Buyback", the government never owned them they can not "buy" them back. It is simply a euphemism for confiscation. Moreover, you can go to pretty much any gun shop or pawnshop to sell a gun you do not want.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    > All of that is repugnant to the constitution and our natural rights. It will also do nothing to stop violence. Ahahahha what
dsomers 6y ago
I honestly don’t like U.S. gun culture at all, but I grew up across from Michigan in Canada and this argument always seemed true. It’s just such a hard problem because of the huge number of guns plus the number of owners the seem to indicate you’d have to kill them to take their guns. It seems like a blood bath waiting to happen unfortunately. I hope I’m wrong.
katbyte 6y ago
The bad people only need guns because the good people carry them around? How often does having a gun out and about save lives? Not prevent a robbery but save a life? How many times does it escalate a situation?
- pdonis 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_gun_use
- skinkestek 6y ago
  A sibling comment has already posted a link to Wikipedia. I couldn't see it mentioned immediately on Wikipedia and it kind of falls outside of the scope of that article too so I'll mention that in addition to people directly preventing crime by pulling a gun IIRC there also seems to be less attempts at crime in areas were there are lots of legal guns. I think rayiner hints at/mentions that somewhere above.

082349872349872 6y ago

Compare the level of violence in the (religiously-motivated) swiss Civil War (mid nineteenth century) with the level of violence in the (slavery-motivated) US Civil War (mid nineteenth century). That's part of my argument for culture. US gun violence probably would decrease if they adopted the swiss system, but good luck getting people who think a two-day hunting license course infringes their 2A rights to agree to a two-year process involving written, oral, and practical tests.

skinkestek 6y ago

Your points are reasonable. But remember: the US is what it is. There is an insane amount of guns floating around already. My suggestion is the "Norwegian model" from now on and going forward: to get anything except a manually reloaded rifle or a (max 2 cartridge) shotgun you need a clean record with the police + (and here comes the interesting part:) you need a recommendation from a local shooting club. Oh, and before buying any hunting gun at all there's a mandatory 50 hours training. I'd recommend trying something similar in the US: tell NRA "we want you to help us". Parts of HN might hate NRA all they want but my understanding is a good chunk of the people in NRA would love to keep weapons out of the hands of crazy people as every criminal shooting hurts peaceful owners as well.

zdragnar 6y ago

Most law-abiding gun owners do not end up misusing them. Aside from sensationalized media coverage, much of the gun violence in our most violent cities (Boston, Chicago, NYC, etc) would not go down with new laws, because many of the crimes are perpetrated by people who are already violating gun laws (not allowed to posses them, illegal modifications, etc). Unfortunately, with police departments being defunded or restricted, illegal gun ownership and use will only rise over time.

ceejayoz 6y ago
> Most law-abiding gun owners do not end up misusing them. Well, yeah. Most non-murderers don't murder, too.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  In this context, it's pretty clear that law-abiding gun owner means someone who owns a gun legally, so the statement isn't tautological.
- zdragnar 6y ago
  Murder has generally always been illegal, yet it hasn't stopped murders from happening. Making new gun laws about how many bullets you get from your military service or how you can transport them won't stop criminals from using them to commit further crimes. As someone else pointed out, you can still buy ammunition in Switzerland. There's plenty of access to guns. The difference is absolutely one of culture, which is what my point was.
pdonis 6y ago
> Most law-abiding gun owners do not end up misusing them. You should probably add that most US gun owners are law-abiding gun owners.
bwanab 6y ago
None of the three cities you mention are even in the top ten of most violent cities and only Chicago (at 17) is in the top 25.

rayiner 6y ago

How do you square that opinion with the observation that some of the places with the loosest gun regulations (Oregon, Idaho) also have some of the lowest homicide rates? In Idaho, something like 60%+ of households own guns. But the homicide rate in the capital city of Boise is at Scandinavian levels, 1/10 of the US average. Utah also has high gun ownership and low gun homicides. (Note that this way of looking at the data gets around the notion that you can’t draw conclusions from homicide rates in cities with high control because guns freely flow into them from elsewhere.)

Krustopolis 6y ago
If your statistics are correct, that lends credence to the old saw, "An armed society is a polite society." But that's likely predicated on everything thinking that everyone else is armed (which in high gun control areas would not be the case). Sort of like nuclear weapons' "mutually assured destruction."
- oblio 6y ago
  Yet some of what people commonly referred to polite societies barely have guns and the opposite can be said for those with lots of guns. The exceptions for the latter category being countries with high external national risk or no standing army.
brnt 6y ago
Maybe the sparseness of the population plays a significant role. Its a lot easier to develop conflicts in more populated areas.
- rayiner 6y ago
  That’s why I used Boise as an example.
sorokod 6y ago
By treating statistics with respect (so no cherry picking), by recognising that violence involving firearms has more then one cause. As to Oregon, consider this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umpqua_Community_College_shooting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umpqua_Community_College_sho... in the context of easily available firearms.

refurb 6y ago

One of the talking points of the NRA is that the US has many gun laws that aren’t really enforced all that well. The NRA agrees that you shouldn’t be able to buy a guy if you have mental problems, drug problems, aren’t in the US legally, criminal history, etc. The only one restriction that is strongly enforced is the criminal history because it’s easy to do a check. But the system for mental health checks is a patchwork across states. And to layer on, if someone does violate these laws, there is often no punishment. Straw purchases are a good example - it usually falls on the dealer to stop the transaction, but there is rarely any police follow-up.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
Straw purchasers do get convicted when someone is killed.
- refurb 6y ago
  True. They certainly do prosecute some straw purchases. But I guess my point would be - if they actually followed up on all straw purchase attempts (even just a call from the ATF saying “yeah, that’s illegal, don’t do that”) you could at least say the law is being enforced. Right now the most likely outcome is the dealer just refusing the sale. You’re free to tighten up your game and try another dealer.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago

I wonder how much of the US gun violence is a problem with guns, and how much of it is a problem with crime. Despair and poverty without a perspective breeds crime. Switzerland doesn't have much of that.