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The question under dispute is what is to be done. Removing guns from law abiding citizens is preferred by one vocal faction, rather than imprisoning criminals

The question under dispute is what is to be done. Removing guns from law abiding citizens is preferred by one vocal faction, rather than imprisoning criminals who use them in committing crimes (and who usually don't possess their guns legally). The other faction says that removing guns from law abiding citizens actually increases crime[0]. [0] https://twitter.com/AnneMarieWTHR/status/1549484122497843200?s=20&t=nQU-aG3Cy25NNJUqt2xPXg https://twitter.com/AnneMarieWTHR/status/1549484122497843200...

vineyardmike 4y ago
> Removing guns from law abiding citizens …who will later be law not abiding when they shoot someone. People want to prevent violence not punish it more. I’ve never seen any real claim that people aren’t getting arrested for hurting people, but I’ve seen a lot of people that want to stop the violence before it happens.
notahacker 4y ago
As the OP said, other countries look on with bemusement at people arguing with a straight face that an anecdote involving one gun owner shooting another gun owner after he'd killed three people with an assault weapon widely and legally available locally proves that a policy of encouraging universal gun ownership is better than alternatives. Not least because some of said countries have four orders of magnitude fewer per capita gun deaths Sure, we get that changing US gun culture might be a bit more challenging than, say, the UK, where there weren't that many people with handguns to start off with when they were banned, and so it was particularly easy to convince even most criminals carrying wasn't worth the additional penalties. What we find bizarre is that someone buys an assault weapon in the sort of store that's ubiquitous in the US and nonexistent in other countries, walks into a mall with it because local regulations say there's no reason to apprehend somebody entering a mall with assault rifles until they've killed someone, and that event gets chalked up as a win for local gun policy because the casualties were in the single digits this time due to the rare use of a civilian gun against a mass shooter
surfaceofthesun 4y ago
That mindset feels reminiscent of the ever-increasing size of vehicles on the road. You avoid the smaller vehicle for fear of being run off the road (or worse) by an oversized truck and so instead of the subcompact you go with the midsize, then crossover, then SUV, ad infinitum. Also, we’ve already been incarcerating people at an alarming rate.* It seems like there’s something more fundamental being neglected — that’s compelling Americans to use our (abundance of) weapons more readily. * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarce...
stefan_ 4y ago
Hello, the US is the world leader in imprisoning people. It clearly doesn't work very well.
fzeroracer 4y ago
As others have mentioned, we're already one of the leading countries in terms of imprisoning people. You're saying the gun violence problem is therefore because we don't imprison enough people? What % of the population do you think needs to be imprisoned before we recognize that maybe its guns that are the problem?
stjohnswarts 4y ago
It's also illegal in the USA per the 2nd. That's one of the few things the current SCOTUS is getting right.

vineyardmike 4y ago

> Removing guns from law abiding citizens …who will later be law not abiding when they shoot someone. People want to prevent violence not punish it more. I’ve never seen any real claim that people aren’t getting arrested for hurting people, but I’ve seen a lot of people that want to stop the violence before it happens.

notahacker 4y ago

As the OP said, other countries look on with bemusement at people arguing with a straight face that an anecdote involving one gun owner shooting another gun owner after he'd killed three people with an assault weapon widely and legally available locally proves that a policy of encouraging universal gun ownership is better than alternatives. Not least because some of said countries have four orders of magnitude fewer per capita gun deaths Sure, we get that changing US gun culture might be a bit more challenging than, say, the UK, where there weren't that many people with handguns to start off with when they were banned, and so it was particularly easy to convince even most criminals carrying wasn't worth the additional penalties. What we find bizarre is that someone buys an assault weapon in the sort of store that's ubiquitous in the US and nonexistent in other countries, walks into a mall with it because local regulations say there's no reason to apprehend somebody entering a mall with assault rifles until they've killed someone, and that event gets chalked up as a win for local gun policy because the casualties were in the single digits this time due to the rare use of a civilian gun against a mass shooter

surfaceofthesun 4y ago

That mindset feels reminiscent of the ever-increasing size of vehicles on the road. You avoid the smaller vehicle for fear of being run off the road (or worse) by an oversized truck and so instead of the subcompact you go with the midsize, then crossover, then SUV, ad infinitum. Also, we’ve already been incarcerating people at an alarming rate.* It seems like there’s something more fundamental being neglected — that’s compelling Americans to use our (abundance of) weapons more readily. * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarce...

stefan_ 4y ago

Hello, the US is the world leader in imprisoning people. It clearly doesn't work very well.

fzeroracer 4y ago

As others have mentioned, we're already one of the leading countries in terms of imprisoning people. You're saying the gun violence problem is therefore because we don't imprison enough people? What % of the population do you think needs to be imprisoned before we recognize that maybe its guns that are the problem?

stjohnswarts 4y ago

It's also illegal in the USA per the 2nd. That's one of the few things the current SCOTUS is getting right.