8 ms·

erm... reduce the number of traumatic, life-threatening situations by taking away the guns? Get your police force under control and stop trying to control peopl

erm... reduce the number of traumatic, life-threatening situations by taking away the guns? Get your police force under control and stop trying to control peoples minds and bodies could be a good start?

bheadmaster 3y ago
I am fairly skeptical of the claim that banning guns would significantly reduce gun violence. People who commit the most gun violence crimes (criminals) will find a way to get guns regardless of the laws. I live in a country where it's very hard to get weapons legally, yet almost every drug bust in the news also contains a significant amount of confiscated firearms.
- notch898c 3y ago
  FGC-9; everybody in Europe who wants a gun can trivially have it within a week without interacting with the criminal element or buying regulated components. That goes for modern ammunition too.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- QuercusMax 3y ago
  This past week in the US there have been several stories about people who were shot after ringing a doorbell or pulling into someone's driveway. Reducing the number of guns means that these people would not be able to enact this type of senseless violence. It would also certainly cut down on the numbers of toddlers shooting their siblings.
  - bheadmaster 3y ago
    Does the number of people getting shot by their toddler siblings or after ringing a doorbell make up a significant percentage of total gun violence? If not, then banning guns would be, in software terms, a premature optimization.
    - AlecSchueler 3y ago
      Why does it have to be a significant percentage of the total? It's still contributing to avoidable life-changing trauma for the people involved.
      - augment002 3y ago
        It has to be a significant part of the total because it’s being used as an argument against introducing new treatments for PTSD.
        AlecSchueler 3y ago
        I read it to be less against pharmaceutical treatments and more in support of preventative social measures.
        augment002 3y ago
        It’s not clear that the two aren’t one and the same. MDMA treatments for PTSD are not ongoing medications. Generally they are just 3 sessions of assisted therapy producing a huge reduction in symptoms. If we can reduce the level of trauma and fear in society, we can reduce associated behaviors.
      - bheadmaster 3y ago
        Because all laws and bans are tradeoffs. By banning something that doesn't have a significant effect you might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. How many lives are saved and traumas avoided through people's ability to defend themselves with guns? If that number is higher than the number of toddler accidents, gun ban would effectively cause an increase in PTSD and deaths. P.S.: just to clarify, by "significant" I mean significant in a statistical sense of not being insignificant (very close to zero, noise-level), not "majority".
        AlecSchueler 3y ago
        That's a fair point. I took the premise to be that there was already a higher trauma rate in the US based on the fact that there is so apparently so much medication given out for trauma related issues compared to other countries. This had been suggested above but I didn't look into it further. > How many lives are saved and traumas avoided through people's ability to defend themselves with guns Self defence with guns sounds pretty traumatising for all involved to be fair.
  - notch898c 3y ago
    How do I protect my toddler from all the criminals who keep their guns? Call the police and wait 15 minutes?
    - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
      If I was having my toddler threatened by criminals on a regular basis, I'd have to question my life choices.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - bheadmaster 3y ago
        Living in an area with high crime rate does not necessarily reflect person's life choices.
      - notch898c 3y ago
        None of the above "gun violence"/"senseless violence" things given as reasons for gun control happen to my family on a regular basis either. By your logic I should question the choice of gun control .
  - Alupis 3y ago
    The notion that taking away legal guns from legal gun owners will somehow reduce illegal violence is about as absurd as outlawing drugs. People who want to do illegal drugs have had zero problems acquiring them, despite near infinite resources plowed into stopping them by governments at all levels. Most people gleefully chant "The war on drugs has failed"...yet, "The war on guns" will somehow succeed?
    - taeric 3y ago
      This does stand in contrast to other nations not having the problem to the degree that we do. And... really, any other evidence. It is illegal for you to build and detonate a bomb in the city. Not shockingly, we have few incidents of this happening. Far fewer than random gun violence in places you are allowed to carry guns. Heck, just set realistic goals here. We make it illegal to drive without a seatbelt, and have largely succeeded in getting folks to wear a belt while in a car. Something far far easier to just not do than the active "seek out an illegal gun" idea that you posit would continue to be a thing. We control fireworks more readily than we do guns. Again, no surprise that we have far fewer counts of incidents with fireworks. And again, also no surprise it isn't zero.
      - Alupis 3y ago
        > It is illegal for you to build and detonate a bomb in the city It is illegal to kill someone, even without a gun, under most circumstances. Perhaps we should make it double-illegal? > Far fewer than random gun violence in places you are allowed to carry guns This is false. Most gun violence does not occur from legal gun owners, or in places allowing concealed or overt carry. No, most gun violence occurs with illegal guns by people committing crimes. There is no realistic way for you or anyone to take away all of the illegal guns in America. Therefore, any proposed gun ban solely impacts legal gun owners - which statistically are not the problem. It sure sounds good though...
        taeric 3y ago
        You really don't seem to be arguing in good faith. If it is already "illegal to kill someone" and we shouldn't "make it double-illegal", then we don't need vehicular manslaughter laws, either. For that matter, why have any of the regulations on safely operating anything. After all, it would be illegal for the worst case already? Why restrict sales of ingredients that can make meth? Why regulate anything? And how is it false that we have more random gun violence than bombing? I can list, this week, more than 1 place where a legal gun owner killed someone. It is famously in the news right now. When is the last time we had a random bomb in a city here? I haven't even proposed taking away all guns. Nobody gives a shit about most hunting weapons. Nor do they care about any properly held weapons with responsible care and protections.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    Way more people are run down by cars while crossing the street, but the media has decided to get hysterical over a blue moon.
    - QuercusMax 3y ago
      Top two causes of under-18 death in the US are guns and cars.
      - refurb 3y ago
        Those stats call “children” 19 years old and younger. So all those 18 and 19 year old “children” gang bangers are included in the statistic.
        QuercusMax 3y ago
        And? Other countries don't have this problem.
        refurb 3y ago
        Your response was irrelevant to my point, but ok.
      - SoftTalker 3y ago
        I was speaking specifically of people getting shot for something like knocking on the door of the wrong house. That's a tiny minority of gun-related deaths and not something anyone really needs to worry about any more than they worry about getting in their car or crossing the street every day.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  The more barriers to entry the less likely someone is to buy a gun on impulse or "just to have." When they're not common on the street it's not needed to carry one for defence either. You say that drugs busts etc. outside the US will often have guns involved. Yes, criminals can still find ways to get them but ordinary people won't be bothered with this. The Netherlands for example has Europe's biggest port in Rotterdam and sees an incredible amount of drug-related smuggling. It has 3.9 guns per 100,000 people (107th in the world) while the US has 88.8 (1st in the world). The rate of murder is 73 times more than the Netherlands. Sources here: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Netherlands/United-States/Crime https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Netherland... Look at the murder rate: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Violent-crime/Murder-rate https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Violen... See how high the US then see how far you have to scroll down before you start seeing European countries appearing there. Sources for more control leading to reduced homicides and guns on crime scenes: 1. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-an... 2. https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/7/3/184 https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/7/3/184
  - notch898c 3y ago
    >The rate of murder is 73 times more than the Netherlands. No the absolute number is 73x, the rate is like 8x. Since you've cherry picked a European state, I will now cherry pick the state New Hampshire. Murder rate New Hampshire: 0.9 / 100k [0] Murder rate Netherlands: ~0.6 / 100k [1] Also bear in mind the expected murder chance of the average person from the Netherlands dropped into the US is not expected to be anything like the US average murder rate. The US is not nearly as demographically homogenous as the Netherlands and someone with Dutch heritage experiences much closer to Dutch murder rates in the US. [0] https://247wallst.com/state/how-the-murder-rate-in-new-hampshire-compares-to-the-rest-of-the-country/ https://247wallst.com/state/how-the-murder-rate-in-new-hamps... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?locations=NL https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?location...
    - AlecSchueler 3y ago
adamq_q 3y ago
Someone has been spending a little too much time on Reddit
- KyeRussell 3y ago
  Oh please. Survey 100 random non-US residents and I’ll eat my hat if the majorly don’t say that US gun policy is absurd. The typical American argument is that the US is exceptional and that the views of “these damn foreigners” don’t matter. I on the other hand seldom hear Americans actively argue that US gun policy is looked upon favourably by the worldwide community. This is exactly what you’re doing by implying that a non-US resident speaking against US gun policy holds a certain political persuasion which means that they should be dismissed. The more likely reality: they have a very typical perspective that transcends the US.
  - tayo42 3y ago
    Thinking gun policy isn't good is different then dealing with ptsd. That same survey, if you ask how many people have ptsd because of guns in America, maybe you get one,if that.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Alupis 3y ago
    Foreigner views are readily dismissed because they are based on biased, sensationalized narrative-driven media coverage of rare events. You don't get US small-town local news in the EU, for instance, so have no reference for how many non-violent stories are aired by comparison - or how many stories cover a happy ending of a homeowner defending themselves successfully. You only get the bad stuff. Imagine if we got week-long, wall-to-wall coverage of nearly every stabbing that took place in the EU... Americans would start to believe you Europeans really need to get that knife situation under control. The reality is, by the numbers, legal gun owners are rarely involved in illegal violence while using their firearms... and there isn't a darn thing anyone can do to remove guns from illegal gun owners. Therefore, the issue, as perceived by a foreigner, is usually reduced to irrelevant talking points. It's just unproductive. Why have the gun laws not changed significantly in the past few decades? Because most Americans do not agree with the sensationalized views pushed by the click/eyeball driven media. It's that simple. So then, as a foreigner, you should consider why that may be... perhaps there is another viewpoint after all?

bheadmaster 3y ago

I am fairly skeptical of the claim that banning guns would significantly reduce gun violence. People who commit the most gun violence crimes (criminals) will find a way to get guns regardless of the laws. I live in a country where it's very hard to get weapons legally, yet almost every drug bust in the news also contains a significant amount of confiscated firearms.

notch898c 3y ago
FGC-9; everybody in Europe who wants a gun can trivially have it within a week without interacting with the criminal element or buying regulated components. That goes for modern ammunition too.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
QuercusMax 3y ago
This past week in the US there have been several stories about people who were shot after ringing a doorbell or pulling into someone's driveway. Reducing the number of guns means that these people would not be able to enact this type of senseless violence. It would also certainly cut down on the numbers of toddlers shooting their siblings.
- bheadmaster 3y ago
  Does the number of people getting shot by their toddler siblings or after ringing a doorbell make up a significant percentage of total gun violence? If not, then banning guns would be, in software terms, a premature optimization.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    Why does it have to be a significant percentage of the total? It's still contributing to avoidable life-changing trauma for the people involved.
    - augment002 3y ago
      It has to be a significant part of the total because it’s being used as an argument against introducing new treatments for PTSD.
      - AlecSchueler 3y ago
        I read it to be less against pharmaceutical treatments and more in support of preventative social measures.
        augment002 3y ago
        It’s not clear that the two aren’t one and the same. MDMA treatments for PTSD are not ongoing medications. Generally they are just 3 sessions of assisted therapy producing a huge reduction in symptoms. If we can reduce the level of trauma and fear in society, we can reduce associated behaviors.
    - bheadmaster 3y ago
      Because all laws and bans are tradeoffs. By banning something that doesn't have a significant effect you might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. How many lives are saved and traumas avoided through people's ability to defend themselves with guns? If that number is higher than the number of toddler accidents, gun ban would effectively cause an increase in PTSD and deaths. P.S.: just to clarify, by "significant" I mean significant in a statistical sense of not being insignificant (very close to zero, noise-level), not "majority".
      - AlecSchueler 3y ago
        That's a fair point. I took the premise to be that there was already a higher trauma rate in the US based on the fact that there is so apparently so much medication given out for trauma related issues compared to other countries. This had been suggested above but I didn't look into it further. > How many lives are saved and traumas avoided through people's ability to defend themselves with guns Self defence with guns sounds pretty traumatising for all involved to be fair.
- notch898c 3y ago
  How do I protect my toddler from all the criminals who keep their guns? Call the police and wait 15 minutes?
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    If I was having my toddler threatened by criminals on a regular basis, I'd have to question my life choices.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - bheadmaster 3y ago
      Living in an area with high crime rate does not necessarily reflect person's life choices.
    - notch898c 3y ago
      None of the above "gun violence"/"senseless violence" things given as reasons for gun control happen to my family on a regular basis either. By your logic I should question the choice of gun control .
- Alupis 3y ago
  The notion that taking away legal guns from legal gun owners will somehow reduce illegal violence is about as absurd as outlawing drugs. People who want to do illegal drugs have had zero problems acquiring them, despite near infinite resources plowed into stopping them by governments at all levels. Most people gleefully chant "The war on drugs has failed"...yet, "The war on guns" will somehow succeed?
  - taeric 3y ago
    This does stand in contrast to other nations not having the problem to the degree that we do. And... really, any other evidence. It is illegal for you to build and detonate a bomb in the city. Not shockingly, we have few incidents of this happening. Far fewer than random gun violence in places you are allowed to carry guns. Heck, just set realistic goals here. We make it illegal to drive without a seatbelt, and have largely succeeded in getting folks to wear a belt while in a car. Something far far easier to just not do than the active "seek out an illegal gun" idea that you posit would continue to be a thing. We control fireworks more readily than we do guns. Again, no surprise that we have far fewer counts of incidents with fireworks. And again, also no surprise it isn't zero.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      > It is illegal for you to build and detonate a bomb in the city It is illegal to kill someone, even without a gun, under most circumstances. Perhaps we should make it double-illegal? > Far fewer than random gun violence in places you are allowed to carry guns This is false. Most gun violence does not occur from legal gun owners, or in places allowing concealed or overt carry. No, most gun violence occurs with illegal guns by people committing crimes. There is no realistic way for you or anyone to take away all of the illegal guns in America. Therefore, any proposed gun ban solely impacts legal gun owners - which statistically are not the problem. It sure sounds good though...
      - taeric 3y ago
        You really don't seem to be arguing in good faith. If it is already "illegal to kill someone" and we shouldn't "make it double-illegal", then we don't need vehicular manslaughter laws, either. For that matter, why have any of the regulations on safely operating anything. After all, it would be illegal for the worst case already? Why restrict sales of ingredients that can make meth? Why regulate anything? And how is it false that we have more random gun violence than bombing? I can list, this week, more than 1 place where a legal gun owner killed someone. It is famously in the news right now. When is the last time we had a random bomb in a city here? I haven't even proposed taking away all guns. Nobody gives a shit about most hunting weapons. Nor do they care about any properly held weapons with responsible care and protections.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Way more people are run down by cars while crossing the street, but the media has decided to get hysterical over a blue moon.
  - QuercusMax 3y ago
    Top two causes of under-18 death in the US are guns and cars.
    - refurb 3y ago
      Those stats call “children” 19 years old and younger. So all those 18 and 19 year old “children” gang bangers are included in the statistic.
      - QuercusMax 3y ago
        And? Other countries don't have this problem.
        refurb 3y ago
        Your response was irrelevant to my point, but ok.
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      I was speaking specifically of people getting shot for something like knocking on the door of the wrong house. That's a tiny minority of gun-related deaths and not something anyone really needs to worry about any more than they worry about getting in their car or crossing the street every day.
AlecSchueler 3y ago
The more barriers to entry the less likely someone is to buy a gun on impulse or "just to have." When they're not common on the street it's not needed to carry one for defence either. You say that drugs busts etc. outside the US will often have guns involved. Yes, criminals can still find ways to get them but ordinary people won't be bothered with this. The Netherlands for example has Europe's biggest port in Rotterdam and sees an incredible amount of drug-related smuggling. It has 3.9 guns per 100,000 people (107th in the world) while the US has 88.8 (1st in the world). The rate of murder is 73 times more than the Netherlands. Sources here: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Netherlands/United-States/Crime https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Netherland... Look at the murder rate: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Violent-crime/Murder-rate https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Violen... See how high the US then see how far you have to scroll down before you start seeing European countries appearing there. Sources for more control leading to reduced homicides and guns on crime scenes: 1. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-an... 2. https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/7/3/184 https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/7/3/184
- notch898c 3y ago
  >The rate of murder is 73 times more than the Netherlands. No the absolute number is 73x, the rate is like 8x. Since you've cherry picked a European state, I will now cherry pick the state New Hampshire. Murder rate New Hampshire: 0.9 / 100k [0] Murder rate Netherlands: ~0.6 / 100k [1] Also bear in mind the expected murder chance of the average person from the Netherlands dropped into the US is not expected to be anything like the US average murder rate. The US is not nearly as demographically homogenous as the Netherlands and someone with Dutch heritage experiences much closer to Dutch murder rates in the US. [0] https://247wallst.com/state/how-the-murder-rate-in-new-hampshire-compares-to-the-rest-of-the-country/ https://247wallst.com/state/how-the-murder-rate-in-new-hamps... [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?locations=NL https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?location...
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago

adamq_q 3y ago

Someone has been spending a little too much time on Reddit

KyeRussell 3y ago
Oh please. Survey 100 random non-US residents and I’ll eat my hat if the majorly don’t say that US gun policy is absurd. The typical American argument is that the US is exceptional and that the views of “these damn foreigners” don’t matter. I on the other hand seldom hear Americans actively argue that US gun policy is looked upon favourably by the worldwide community. This is exactly what you’re doing by implying that a non-US resident speaking against US gun policy holds a certain political persuasion which means that they should be dismissed. The more likely reality: they have a very typical perspective that transcends the US.
- tayo42 3y ago
  Thinking gun policy isn't good is different then dealing with ptsd. That same survey, if you ask how many people have ptsd because of guns in America, maybe you get one,if that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Alupis 3y ago
  Foreigner views are readily dismissed because they are based on biased, sensationalized narrative-driven media coverage of rare events. You don't get US small-town local news in the EU, for instance, so have no reference for how many non-violent stories are aired by comparison - or how many stories cover a happy ending of a homeowner defending themselves successfully. You only get the bad stuff. Imagine if we got week-long, wall-to-wall coverage of nearly every stabbing that took place in the EU... Americans would start to believe you Europeans really need to get that knife situation under control. The reality is, by the numbers, legal gun owners are rarely involved in illegal violence while using their firearms... and there isn't a darn thing anyone can do to remove guns from illegal gun owners. Therefore, the issue, as perceived by a foreigner, is usually reduced to irrelevant talking points. It's just unproductive. Why have the gun laws not changed significantly in the past few decades? Because most Americans do not agree with the sensationalized views pushed by the click/eyeball driven media. It's that simple. So then, as a foreigner, you should consider why that may be... perhaps there is another viewpoint after all?