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"Where many U.S. states permit concealed carry of handguns, handguns are virtually illegal to carry in Canada. Transporting them from your home to the range is

"Where many U.S. states permit concealed carry of handguns, handguns are virtually illegal to carry in Canada. Transporting them from your home to the range is legal, but they must be unloaded, locked, and permits are required for the transport." I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. The other policies you mention may be more relevant, but it goes to show how easy it is to conflate various kinds of harm and what laws might prevent it. I think gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little. But it's hard to get past the "more guns laws the better" mentality that is so wodespread.

charles_kaw 4y ago
>I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. On virtue of how many shootings have begun "without warning", the cultural context in canada versus the us is quite different. The expectation of actions when you see a firearm is very different in these two countries! - in the US, someone with an openly carried firearm may be transporting it or any number of innocent use cases - in Canada, someone with an openly carried firearm is already committing a crime. And, that crime is generally of no personal benefit to them^, which is a huge warning sign. They are likely not considering the law in their actions. If I saw a person with a gun in the US, I would quickly walk away. If I saw a person with a gun in Canada, I would run. >gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little Gun owners consistently misrepresent and come up with inconsistent interpretations of any gun control. The bar is never high enough, the logic never sound enough. The "broad infringements" proposed are never, and will never be, good enough. I find your statement to be a bit disingenuous in that regard. ^ while protest is a valid case imo, protesting by (for example) carrying a gun onto a school campus, grocery store, or movie theater is quite different than in a park with other protestors. Context matters, even here!
- kodah 4y ago
  > Gun owners consistently misrepresent and come up with inconsistent interpretations of any gun control. Maybe sometimes, but there's also gun laws like in California that affect large populations of gun owners. I don't think they're making their dissatisfaction and confusion with the gun laws up. Owning a gun in the US isn't very simple; different states have wildly different laws you have to observe, and those are in effect at airports as well. I don't think it's wise to say, "they just don't understand" to the people who actually have to live with the laws. As a gun owner, I do think there's reasonable forms of gun control. I don't mind having my background checked or paying a tax stamp. I don't mind psychological evaluations or closing gun show loopholes. Restricting guns, ammo, attachments, magazine sizes etc are not effective forms of gun control imo.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    > and those are in effect at airports as well I don’t think this is that difficult. Don’t bring a gun to an airport. If you must for transport, arrange for a professional to do it for you. If you can’t afford that, you don’t have a good reason to travel with a firearm.
    - jcims 4y ago
      It's straightforward to fly with firearms. You don't need a professional, just basic attention to detail. Details are posted by the TSA: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/transporting-firearms-and-ammunition https://www.tsa.gov/travel/transporting-firearms-and-ammunit... >If you can’t afford that, you don’t have a good reason to travel with a firearm. Citation needed.
      - eyelidlessness 4y ago
        > It's straightforward to fly with firearms. You don't need a professional, just basic attention to detail. Details are posted by the TSA Including the very elucidating first bullet point! > Citation needed. I was being generous. No one needs to travel by air with a firearm.
jeffbee 4y ago
Rifles with detachable magazines, or internal magazines with more than 5 rounds, should be as hard to purchase as machine guns. That's narrow enough for me.
- chmod600 4y ago
  Long guns (rifles and shotguns) account for something like 2% of gun-involved homicides. People use them for mass shootings, but they also use pistols, and there's not a huge difference in the outcome. Your proposed law would have very low effectiveness, but impact millions (maybe tens of millions) people who want to buy rifles. Maybe you don't care about those people, but maybe that's part of the problem? They are fellow citizens, they can vote, and they have rights. And they know you don't care about them and they will resist your proposals because they don't trust you. You can turn that around and say that they should care more about you, and maybe they should. But at some point, we have to communicate, because we (collectively) aren't making good policy any more.
  - multjoy 4y ago
    Notwithstanding "because", why does a civilian gun owner need a firearm with more than (say) 5 round capacity?
    - ducktales 4y ago
      The same reason that the FBI (and other policing administrations) did away with the service revolver. There's actual a distinct tragedy where some FBI agents died in a firefight that spurred this, apologies for lack of citation - it is late. It is scarily easy to miss, even at physically close distances, when fighting for one's life. I feel most people that haven't shot a gun, or have only shot a gun while sitting perfectly still and undistracted, underestimate the above fact. If you do have access to guns and the ability to test this, do some sort of exercise to get yourself breathing heavily before shooting, you'll see the difference. All of this presupposes that we agree the average citizen has the right to defend their life with adequate tools. Some may, with good statistical arguments at hand, determine that the likelihood of being a victim of violent crime does not meet the threshold for allowing this level of self defense. I hope that partially answers your question
Reason077 4y ago
> “I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them.” And yet, there does seem to be a strong correlation between “countries with stricter gun control laws” and “countries that have low rates of gun-related deaths and homicides”. Canada has between 6-8X fewer gun fatalities per capita compared to the United States - both homicides and unintentional/accidental gun death rates are much lower. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm...
- kyrra 4y ago
  Removing suicides from the stats, a large amount of gun violence is done around gang activity. Looking at the stats for Chicago should sadden anyone. Finding and fixing the causes of these is a much harder problem. NYC did a lot under Giuliani in Bloomberg to lower their crime in murder rate, but those have started rising again. Chicago hasn't done anything to fix their crime problem in the last 30+ years. Dealing with gangs and mental health should be topics we are looking at. Btw: getting rid of guns doesn't stop mass casualty events. The number one mass casualty event in the United States was done with box cutters. The number three was a van full of fertilizer. (The number 2 was a collection of many different weapons and methods) Edit: if you want to read a good study about mass shootings in the US and their potential causes and statistics around them, check out this: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/public-mass-shootings-database-amasses-details-half-century-us-mass-shootings https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/public-mass-shootings-da...
  - bigDinosaur 4y ago
    Box cutters for airplane hijacking was a once-off event that would simply never be repeated even if cockpit doors hadn't been hardened against hostile takeover. Now, passengers simply would fight. The expectation was, I believe, that they would be taken as hostages, not killed in a suicide attack.
    - kyrra 4y ago
      Agreed, that vector won't happen again. The #2 hopefully will never happen again (Tulsa race massacre). But the #3 (Oklahoma City bombing) could happen again with a sufficiently dedicated person. But people are creative, and some other method could be used in the future. The Boston Marathon bombing was only 3 deaths, but 264 injured, and that was just a pressure cooker. The Trollhättan school attack was 3 killed with a sword. Guns are a tool, a very deadly tool, but a tool none the less. Removing them from the US would be near impossible at this point (with the 2nd and 4th amendments getting in the way). It's also not all that popular in this country. Stricter gun laws don't seem to help (see the Buffalo shooting, in a state with red-flag laws). One interesting point I heard raised is that the phrase "going postal" was born from an era where workplace shootings became common, but have since near disappeared (with background checks being a large part of the reason). Figuring out why our younger population is doing down the route they have the last 25'ish years is something that has yet to be corrected.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
As a former gun rights advocate who is now in favor of basically eliminating guns except for hunting… > I think gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little. From both positions, I’d favor regulation that explicitly aims to limit gun possession as much as legally possible. The problem with “more gun laws the better” is everyone knows it’s bullshit that accomplishes nothing, no one benefits, and every terrible incentive is incentivized. They should come for the guns and get as many as possible, with as much solid legal theory backing it as they can. They’re never going to convince the fringe, but they’ll convince the vast majority of people who agree with regulation that they mean it and intend to be effective. Anything short of that is political theater.
- teakettle42 4y ago
  Simply: no. Take a cold hard look at the institutions that fail children so spectacularly that they create mass murderers at a historically unprecedented rate.
  - PpEY4fu85hkQpn 4y ago
    What leads you do believe "the institutions" in the USA are are failing children at a substantially higher rate than any other country? And what specifically are you even talking about?
    - teakettle42 4y ago
      We didn’t previously produce mass murderers as at anywhere near this rate. Why are our children so incredibly poorly served by our educational and social institutions, and their families? What has changed? Creating mass murderers is the problem, not guns.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    I did, that’s why I changed my mind about guns.
praestigiare 4y ago
The mechanism is that guns are harder to get, both legally and illegally, if there are strong controls on their purchase and use. Yes, a mass shooter would ignore the legal implications of getting a gun, but they cannot ignore the fact that there are fewer guns to get.
Broken_Hippo 4y ago
I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. If the guns are illegal, they aren't as easy to get. They aren't in everyone's home. If you break in somewhere to steal a gun, you'll not get a handgun. You know, because most folks aren't willing to hold onto an illegal gun. You aren't going to go to a gun show and buy an illegal gun because those folks don't want the shows shut down. Which does mean that you'll have to go to the black market. The thing about the black market: If something is harder to come by, you'll be charged more. Same if the penalty is higher. You could see this in the drug market: LSD was generally more expensive than weed. (Still probably is, but I really don't know how pot legalisation has affected black market prices). If guns are harder to get, there is less chance that a mass shooter will be able to get one. Could it mean that they use other means? Sure they could. But realistically, those options don't always have the same effect. You could build a bomb, maybe. If you can get the supplies and knowledge to do it. Most options available to the average person, though, aren't going to be as deadly as guns and in general, won't kill so many people in such a short span of time and so many simply aren't as lethal. In this, it is much like suicides. When gun laws are more strict, fewer people choose guns for a suicide. They choose different methods, though, and most of these are less lethal - which overall means that death by suicide goes down. For a decent comparison, check Australia, which used to have a similar gun culture.
- JohnWhigham 4y ago
  Doesn't track for many places in the US. Chicago has some of the strictest gun control in the country, yet also has a mass shooting every other week in the summer.
  - picklesman 4y ago
    While that possibly makes it harder to acquire a gun in the city, an individual purchaser or black market dealer could simply drive a couple of hours to get their hands on one, no? Also while impossible to prove, I think the numbers would be even higher in the city without the control in place.
    - 4y ago
slothtrop 4y ago
> A mass shooter would simply ignore them. School shooters are usually teenagers with easy access to a gun at home. They don't have a criminal history or ties to the underworld, they're loners. It's really a question of whether dad has a concealable firearm. In Canada, they do not.
908B64B197 4y ago
> I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. And that's what happened in the past. It's almost as if criminals were... not following the law!

charles_kaw 4y ago

>I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. On virtue of how many shootings have begun "without warning", the cultural context in canada versus the us is quite different. The expectation of actions when you see a firearm is very different in these two countries! - in the US, someone with an openly carried firearm may be transporting it or any number of innocent use cases - in Canada, someone with an openly carried firearm is already committing a crime. And, that crime is generally of no personal benefit to them^, which is a huge warning sign. They are likely not considering the law in their actions. If I saw a person with a gun in the US, I would quickly walk away. If I saw a person with a gun in Canada, I would run. >gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little Gun owners consistently misrepresent and come up with inconsistent interpretations of any gun control. The bar is never high enough, the logic never sound enough. The "broad infringements" proposed are never, and will never be, good enough. I find your statement to be a bit disingenuous in that regard. ^ while protest is a valid case imo, protesting by (for example) carrying a gun onto a school campus, grocery store, or movie theater is quite different than in a park with other protestors. Context matters, even here!

kodah 4y ago
> Gun owners consistently misrepresent and come up with inconsistent interpretations of any gun control. Maybe sometimes, but there's also gun laws like in California that affect large populations of gun owners. I don't think they're making their dissatisfaction and confusion with the gun laws up. Owning a gun in the US isn't very simple; different states have wildly different laws you have to observe, and those are in effect at airports as well. I don't think it's wise to say, "they just don't understand" to the people who actually have to live with the laws. As a gun owner, I do think there's reasonable forms of gun control. I don't mind having my background checked or paying a tax stamp. I don't mind psychological evaluations or closing gun show loopholes. Restricting guns, ammo, attachments, magazine sizes etc are not effective forms of gun control imo.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  > and those are in effect at airports as well I don’t think this is that difficult. Don’t bring a gun to an airport. If you must for transport, arrange for a professional to do it for you. If you can’t afford that, you don’t have a good reason to travel with a firearm.
  - jcims 4y ago
    It's straightforward to fly with firearms. You don't need a professional, just basic attention to detail. Details are posted by the TSA: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/transporting-firearms-and-ammunition https://www.tsa.gov/travel/transporting-firearms-and-ammunit... >If you can’t afford that, you don’t have a good reason to travel with a firearm. Citation needed.
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      > It's straightforward to fly with firearms. You don't need a professional, just basic attention to detail. Details are posted by the TSA Including the very elucidating first bullet point! > Citation needed. I was being generous. No one needs to travel by air with a firearm.

jeffbee 4y ago

Rifles with detachable magazines, or internal magazines with more than 5 rounds, should be as hard to purchase as machine guns. That's narrow enough for me.

chmod600 4y ago
Long guns (rifles and shotguns) account for something like 2% of gun-involved homicides. People use them for mass shootings, but they also use pistols, and there's not a huge difference in the outcome. Your proposed law would have very low effectiveness, but impact millions (maybe tens of millions) people who want to buy rifles. Maybe you don't care about those people, but maybe that's part of the problem? They are fellow citizens, they can vote, and they have rights. And they know you don't care about them and they will resist your proposals because they don't trust you. You can turn that around and say that they should care more about you, and maybe they should. But at some point, we have to communicate, because we (collectively) aren't making good policy any more.
- multjoy 4y ago
  Notwithstanding "because", why does a civilian gun owner need a firearm with more than (say) 5 round capacity?
  - ducktales 4y ago
    The same reason that the FBI (and other policing administrations) did away with the service revolver. There's actual a distinct tragedy where some FBI agents died in a firefight that spurred this, apologies for lack of citation - it is late. It is scarily easy to miss, even at physically close distances, when fighting for one's life. I feel most people that haven't shot a gun, or have only shot a gun while sitting perfectly still and undistracted, underestimate the above fact. If you do have access to guns and the ability to test this, do some sort of exercise to get yourself breathing heavily before shooting, you'll see the difference. All of this presupposes that we agree the average citizen has the right to defend their life with adequate tools. Some may, with good statistical arguments at hand, determine that the likelihood of being a victim of violent crime does not meet the threshold for allowing this level of self defense. I hope that partially answers your question

Reason077 4y ago

> “I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them.” And yet, there does seem to be a strong correlation between “countries with stricter gun control laws” and “countries that have low rates of gun-related deaths and homicides”. Canada has between 6-8X fewer gun fatalities per capita compared to the United States - both homicides and unintentional/accidental gun death rates are much lower. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm...

kyrra 4y ago
Removing suicides from the stats, a large amount of gun violence is done around gang activity. Looking at the stats for Chicago should sadden anyone. Finding and fixing the causes of these is a much harder problem. NYC did a lot under Giuliani in Bloomberg to lower their crime in murder rate, but those have started rising again. Chicago hasn't done anything to fix their crime problem in the last 30+ years. Dealing with gangs and mental health should be topics we are looking at. Btw: getting rid of guns doesn't stop mass casualty events. The number one mass casualty event in the United States was done with box cutters. The number three was a van full of fertilizer. (The number 2 was a collection of many different weapons and methods) Edit: if you want to read a good study about mass shootings in the US and their potential causes and statistics around them, check out this: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/public-mass-shootings-database-amasses-details-half-century-us-mass-shootings https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/public-mass-shootings-da...
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  Box cutters for airplane hijacking was a once-off event that would simply never be repeated even if cockpit doors hadn't been hardened against hostile takeover. Now, passengers simply would fight. The expectation was, I believe, that they would be taken as hostages, not killed in a suicide attack.
  - kyrra 4y ago
    Agreed, that vector won't happen again. The #2 hopefully will never happen again (Tulsa race massacre). But the #3 (Oklahoma City bombing) could happen again with a sufficiently dedicated person. But people are creative, and some other method could be used in the future. The Boston Marathon bombing was only 3 deaths, but 264 injured, and that was just a pressure cooker. The Trollhättan school attack was 3 killed with a sword. Guns are a tool, a very deadly tool, but a tool none the less. Removing them from the US would be near impossible at this point (with the 2nd and 4th amendments getting in the way). It's also not all that popular in this country. Stricter gun laws don't seem to help (see the Buffalo shooting, in a state with red-flag laws). One interesting point I heard raised is that the phrase "going postal" was born from an era where workplace shootings became common, but have since near disappeared (with background checks being a large part of the reason). Figuring out why our younger population is doing down the route they have the last 25'ish years is something that has yet to be corrected.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

As a former gun rights advocate who is now in favor of basically eliminating guns except for hunting… > I think gun owners would be much more receptive to regulation if they felt people were genuinely trying to separate narrow and effective laws from broad infringements that annoy many and accomplish little. From both positions, I’d favor regulation that explicitly aims to limit gun possession as much as legally possible. The problem with “more gun laws the better” is everyone knows it’s bullshit that accomplishes nothing, no one benefits, and every terrible incentive is incentivized. They should come for the guns and get as many as possible, with as much solid legal theory backing it as they can. They’re never going to convince the fringe, but they’ll convince the vast majority of people who agree with regulation that they mean it and intend to be effective. Anything short of that is political theater.

teakettle42 4y ago
Simply: no. Take a cold hard look at the institutions that fail children so spectacularly that they create mass murderers at a historically unprecedented rate.
- PpEY4fu85hkQpn 4y ago
  What leads you do believe "the institutions" in the USA are are failing children at a substantially higher rate than any other country? And what specifically are you even talking about?
  - teakettle42 4y ago
    We didn’t previously produce mass murderers as at anywhere near this rate. Why are our children so incredibly poorly served by our educational and social institutions, and their families? What has changed? Creating mass murderers is the problem, not guns.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  I did, that’s why I changed my mind about guns.

praestigiare 4y ago

The mechanism is that guns are harder to get, both legally and illegally, if there are strong controls on their purchase and use. Yes, a mass shooter would ignore the legal implications of getting a gun, but they cannot ignore the fact that there are fewer guns to get.

Broken_Hippo 4y ago

I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. If the guns are illegal, they aren't as easy to get. They aren't in everyone's home. If you break in somewhere to steal a gun, you'll not get a handgun. You know, because most folks aren't willing to hold onto an illegal gun. You aren't going to go to a gun show and buy an illegal gun because those folks don't want the shows shut down. Which does mean that you'll have to go to the black market. The thing about the black market: If something is harder to come by, you'll be charged more. Same if the penalty is higher. You could see this in the drug market: LSD was generally more expensive than weed. (Still probably is, but I really don't know how pot legalisation has affected black market prices). If guns are harder to get, there is less chance that a mass shooter will be able to get one. Could it mean that they use other means? Sure they could. But realistically, those options don't always have the same effect. You could build a bomb, maybe. If you can get the supplies and knowledge to do it. Most options available to the average person, though, aren't going to be as deadly as guns and in general, won't kill so many people in such a short span of time and so many simply aren't as lethal. In this, it is much like suicides. When gun laws are more strict, fewer people choose guns for a suicide. They choose different methods, though, and most of these are less lethal - which overall means that death by suicide goes down. For a decent comparison, check Australia, which used to have a similar gun culture.

JohnWhigham 4y ago
Doesn't track for many places in the US. Chicago has some of the strictest gun control in the country, yet also has a mass shooting every other week in the summer.
- picklesman 4y ago
  While that possibly makes it harder to acquire a gun in the city, an individual purchaser or black market dealer could simply drive a couple of hours to get their hands on one, no? Also while impossible to prove, I think the numbers would be even higher in the city without the control in place.
  - 4y ago

slothtrop 4y ago

> A mass shooter would simply ignore them. School shooters are usually teenagers with easy access to a gun at home. They don't have a criminal history or ties to the underworld, they're loners. It's really a question of whether dad has a concealable firearm. In Canada, they do not.

908B64B197 4y ago

> I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. And that's what happened in the past. It's almost as if criminals were... not following the law!