4 ms·

> relaxed gun laws make it easier for criminals to shoot people A little O/T, but this trope needs to please stop. The places with the highest gun crimes are

> relaxed gun laws make it easier for criminals to shoot people A little O/T, but this trope needs to please stop. The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws. It should go without saying that criminals without definition would not care about laws.

zacharycohn 5y ago
While there is very little research on this (because Congress banned funding research on this after pressure from the NRA in the 90s), what research does exist does not support your assertion: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/states-with-strict-gun-laws-have-fewer-firearms-deaths-heres-how-your-state-stacks-up.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/states-with-strict-gun-laws-... It's not about criminals not caring about the law. Shooting people is already illegal. It's about making it more difficult to access and acquire these weapons. If you can't access something, it is much more difficult to use.
- lvass 5y ago
  He mentioned "gun crime" not deaths. Most deaths are from suicide.
- foolinaround 5y ago
  > what research does exist does not support your assertion the link you posted does not oppose it as the other comment pointed out. I hope you will keep an open mind as you look into this, setting aside the agendas of the NRA or the anti-gun groups. When there is an item (gun, in this instance) which has both good and bad uses ( what they are, we are reasonably argue) -- there needs to be a balance in how the item is procured. Nowhere in the country does one just go and pick one up. There are (again, we can argue on what is reasonable) checks and balances - checking the person's track history etc. All this goes out the window when it is possible to skirt the law, or in the case of London, use knives instead of guns for the crimes. We need to solve the problem at the right level of abstraction. We need to focus on why the society today sees more shootings in the past decades when the guns have been existing for much longer.
muglug 5y ago
> The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws Only in America. Other western nations have tough gun laws and also low gun crime, because you can't hop in your car and pick up a gun in a neighbouring state. And actually the correlation is only seen in parts of America. New York City has tough gun laws, comparatively low gun crime and a lower homicide rate per capita than the rest of the country. Time and time again people say "tough gun laws lead to more gun crime" but really they mean "in a country where it's really really easy to buy guns, we mostly see the negative impact of gun ownership in high-density poor neighbourhoods".
- zepto 5y ago
  > because you can't hop in your car and pick up a gun in a neighbouring state. You can’t do this in America either. You can only buy guns legally in your state of residence.
  - germinalphrase 5y ago
    There’s no paperwork or background check on a private sale, so it’s almost a meaningless distinction.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > There’s no paperwork or background check on a private sale, so it’s almost a meaningless distinction. If someone is willing to buy a gun illegally, they don’t need to go out of state.
      - germinalphrase 5y ago
        Private sales aren’t illegal, but - yes - guns are easily available (legal or not) in the United States.
        zepto 5y ago
        Guns are widely available to anyone who wants to break the law. The claim that this is because people can drive to others states is false. For everyone else, how available they are depends on where you live.
hkt 5y ago
> The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws. Big claims require some big evidence. In the UK there are strict controls on gun ownership and we have virtually no crimes carried out with legal guns, and more but still very few with illegal ones. Can you give some counter examples?
franga2000 5y ago
I meant criminals in this context as anyone who commits a crime using a gun. If you shoot someone you're a criminal regardless of whether you used an illegally acquired gun like a "career criminal" certainly would or if you had the gun legally and then decided to commit a crime. And I can't really agree with your assertion either. See stats in [0] and a gun law map in [1]. At best it's a correlation without causation, but the correlation certainly isn't the inverse as you suggest. I also don't see how it's not a relevant example - it's Thing A making Thing B worse, but Thing B would still happen without Thing A and so Thing A can't be blamed for Thing B. Regardless of whether the underlying assertion is correct (less gun control leading to more gun crime), the logic is valid. [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation
mpweiher 5y ago
In addition to the other comments: have you considered that the causality is reversed? That is, tough gun laws are enacted exactly because of a high rate of gun crime? And of course those tougher laws can have at best a mild moderating effect when guns can freely enter that area with the tougher gun laws from other areas that do not have them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...

zacharycohn 5y ago

While there is very little research on this (because Congress banned funding research on this after pressure from the NRA in the 90s), what research does exist does not support your assertion: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/states-with-strict-gun-laws-have-fewer-firearms-deaths-heres-how-your-state-stacks-up.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/27/states-with-strict-gun-laws-... It's not about criminals not caring about the law. Shooting people is already illegal. It's about making it more difficult to access and acquire these weapons. If you can't access something, it is much more difficult to use.

lvass 5y ago
He mentioned "gun crime" not deaths. Most deaths are from suicide.
foolinaround 5y ago
> what research does exist does not support your assertion the link you posted does not oppose it as the other comment pointed out. I hope you will keep an open mind as you look into this, setting aside the agendas of the NRA or the anti-gun groups. When there is an item (gun, in this instance) which has both good and bad uses ( what they are, we are reasonably argue) -- there needs to be a balance in how the item is procured. Nowhere in the country does one just go and pick one up. There are (again, we can argue on what is reasonable) checks and balances - checking the person's track history etc. All this goes out the window when it is possible to skirt the law, or in the case of London, use knives instead of guns for the crimes. We need to solve the problem at the right level of abstraction. We need to focus on why the society today sees more shootings in the past decades when the guns have been existing for much longer.

muglug 5y ago

> The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws Only in America. Other western nations have tough gun laws and also low gun crime, because you can't hop in your car and pick up a gun in a neighbouring state. And actually the correlation is only seen in parts of America. New York City has tough gun laws, comparatively low gun crime and a lower homicide rate per capita than the rest of the country. Time and time again people say "tough gun laws lead to more gun crime" but really they mean "in a country where it's really really easy to buy guns, we mostly see the negative impact of gun ownership in high-density poor neighbourhoods".

zepto 5y ago
> because you can't hop in your car and pick up a gun in a neighbouring state. You can’t do this in America either. You can only buy guns legally in your state of residence.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  There’s no paperwork or background check on a private sale, so it’s almost a meaningless distinction.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > There’s no paperwork or background check on a private sale, so it’s almost a meaningless distinction. If someone is willing to buy a gun illegally, they don’t need to go out of state.
    - germinalphrase 5y ago
      Private sales aren’t illegal, but - yes - guns are easily available (legal or not) in the United States.
      - zepto 5y ago
        Guns are widely available to anyone who wants to break the law. The claim that this is because people can drive to others states is false. For everyone else, how available they are depends on where you live.

hkt 5y ago

> The places with the highest gun crimes are also the places with the toughest gun laws. Big claims require some big evidence. In the UK there are strict controls on gun ownership and we have virtually no crimes carried out with legal guns, and more but still very few with illegal ones. Can you give some counter examples?

franga2000 5y ago

I meant criminals in this context as anyone who commits a crime using a gun. If you shoot someone you're a criminal regardless of whether you used an illegally acquired gun like a "career criminal" certainly would or if you had the gun legally and then decided to commit a crime. And I can't really agree with your assertion either. See stats in [0] and a gun law map in [1]. At best it's a correlation without causation, but the correlation certainly isn't the inverse as you suggest. I also don't see how it's not a relevant example - it's Thing A making Thing B worse, but Thing B would still happen without Thing A and so Thing A can't be blamed for Thing B. Regardless of whether the underlying assertion is correct (less gun control leading to more gun crime), the logic is valid. [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation

mpweiher 5y ago

In addition to the other comments: have you considered that the causality is reversed? That is, tough gun laws are enacted exactly because of a high rate of gun crime? And of course those tougher laws can have at best a mild moderating effect when guns can freely enter that area with the tougher gun laws from other areas that do not have them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r...