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You're missing the point of stricter gun control laws. No one thinks that criminals will just "follow the laws" and give up their guns. The point is that the va

You're missing the point of stricter gun control laws. No one thinks that criminals will just "follow the laws" and give up their guns. The point is that the vast majority of armed criminals don't machine the weapons from the metal on their own. There is a supply chain, and some link in that chain are not criminals. Stricter regulations will impact that supply chain and make it harder for people to obtain guns who shouldn't have them. (It's also not "all or nothing"; we don't need to ensure that no criminals ever acquire guns. Any reduction in the number that do saves lives.) Laws restricting public carrying of weapons aren't geared towards stopping career criminals, they're geared towards preventing injury and death caused by "lawful owners" accidentally, or intentionally but recklessly, firing their weapons in public, thinking they "needed to" or "should" do it. If someone wants to carry a firearm in public, it means they believe there is a situation where they will need to fire it in public. And as we know, humans are fallible and often think they "need to" do harmful things in situations where they don't. Those cases are what public carrying laws are intended to curb. (BTW, most deaths due to firearms occur not by thugs/gangsters/career criminals, but by lawful and, prior to the incident, "responsible" gun owners making mistakes.)

Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
Not to put a fine point on it, but everything, and I do mean everything you are saying is a lie, to the point of blood libel. I'll just point out the most provable one: in 1980 there were 1,955 fatal gun accidents, in 2019, the most recent for which the CDC has numbers (they've been preoccupied) 486. During that period, the population increased by about half, the guns owned by it more than doubled. In part because they become a lot more useful outside of states like New York because we went from two states, Washington and Vermont that were Shall Issue or better to 43, with 74% of the population. Per million residents 8.6 to 1.5 accidental deaths. Your claim completely flies in the face of 41 states allowing any citizen of good standing, not even a licence required in 24 with another next year, carrying concealed.
- IceMetalPunk 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you think the numbers you mentioned "prove"; you listed numbers for accidental gun deaths without comparing them to the total number of gun deaths. The questions we're discussing are "are more than 50% of gun deaths attributable to unintentional gun killings?" and "can regulations about who can carry guns, where, and when reduce that number?" Your statistics don't address either question.

Throwawayaerlei 4y ago

Not to put a fine point on it, but everything, and I do mean everything you are saying is a lie, to the point of blood libel. I'll just point out the most provable one: in 1980 there were 1,955 fatal gun accidents, in 2019, the most recent for which the CDC has numbers (they've been preoccupied) 486. During that period, the population increased by about half, the guns owned by it more than doubled. In part because they become a lot more useful outside of states like New York because we went from two states, Washington and Vermont that were Shall Issue or better to 43, with 74% of the population. Per million residents 8.6 to 1.5 accidental deaths. Your claim completely flies in the face of 41 states allowing any citizen of good standing, not even a licence required in 24 with another next year, carrying concealed.

IceMetalPunk 4y ago
I'm not sure what you think the numbers you mentioned "prove"; you listed numbers for accidental gun deaths without comparing them to the total number of gun deaths. The questions we're discussing are "are more than 50% of gun deaths attributable to unintentional gun killings?" and "can regulations about who can carry guns, where, and when reduce that number?" Your statistics don't address either question.