4 ms·

>I live in South Africa. Your homicide rate is 7 times ours. >Legal gun sales, gun licenses, etc are tightly regulated not unlike Australia. Yet you have 7 t

by learc83 14y ago

>I live in South Africa. Your homicide rate is 7 times ours. >Legal gun sales, gun licenses, etc are tightly regulated not unlike Australia. Yet you have 7 times the murder rate. >If it isn't guns that is the problem, then what is it? Obviously it's not the guns. America has 7 times the guns (per capita), but 7 times less murders (per capita). Going by your example there is an inverse linear relationship between guns ownership and homicides. >Maybe. But where would you even find illegal weapons if there are hardly any unaccounted for legal ones to begin with? We have 300 million guns in America, they are nearly all unregistered. There is simply no way to remove them. Furthermore if you tried to confiscate them, there are literally tens of thousands of heavily armed people just waiting for the government to try to take away their guns. The death toll would dwarf any killings you could prevent. If you banned all guns the black market price would skyrocket and many of those 300 million guns that are currently just sitting unused in basements would end up on the streets. The only possible outcome is that after the initial carnage, chaos and insurrection, law abiding citizens give up their guns, while hundreds of millions of guns are still circulating in the hands of criminals. Then once the violence stops, thousands of gun enthusiasts will start manufacturing more firearms. You cannot possibly understand how seriously many American's believe in our right to own firearms. Discussing banning, or Australian style restrictions is a moot point--it cannot happen in the foreseeable future.

lerouxb 14y ago
Look closer at the statistics. Just like most other countries it is mostly people killing people they know within their own communities. Typically relatives. Look at what they use to kill each other, how many people they kill per incident, the demographics of the people doing the killing and being killed, etc. A crazy high percentage is things like off-duty cops using their service pistols to kill their own families, for example. We're a messed up country for all sorts of other reasons that are obviously too long to go into here. But we don't have people regularly shooting up schools, malls and cinemas. (And South Africa as an example made up maybe 10% of my comment.)
- learc83 14y ago
  >But we don't have people regularly shooting up schools, malls and cinemas. That's the point--we don't either. The number of American's killed in mass shootings is statistically insignificant. You don't base public policy on a few dozen people killed per year. There has to be some threshold before you start banning things. If for instance banning M rated video games would save 20 people per year should we do it? If you want to talk about gun control a mass shooting that killed a dozen people is completely insignificant. No one would even bat an eyelash if 3 gangbangers killed 5 people each that same day.
  - lerouxb 14y ago
    Perhaps. The fact still stands that with less guns you'll have less gun-related violence. If you have 300 million guns now, how many will you have in a generation? No one can argue against there being a correlation between number of guns and number of gun related crimes. America obviously needs gun control and I don't particularly care if it takes talking about massacres or gangbangers to get there. Clearly people don't care as much about dead gangbangers..
    - learc83 14y ago
      >America obviously needs gun control and I don't particularly care if it takes talking about massacres or gangbangers to get there. What is it about American gun control in particular that causes Europeans/South Africans/Canadians/Australians to care so much about what goes on in another country? If it were just about saving lives you should get much more upset about the smoking rate in china, or parts of europe for that matter. For instance you won't find me insisting that Switzerland pass harsh anti-smoking laws because I think they should, regardless of what their citizens want, just because they have more smoking related deaths than we do. >No one can argue against there being a correlation between number of guns and number of gun related crimes. Actually there are plenty of examples of countries where that doesn't hold. For example our gun ownership is much higher than any country in the top 20 for intentional homicides. And Canada, Switzerland, France, Sweden and Norway have a very large amount of guns, but very low homicide rates. Should Canada get rid of their guns as well? They have half the guns, but far less than half the murders. If guns were causing homicides what explains all of these anomalies? In fact from comparing the wikipedia list of countries by intentional homicide rate to countries by gun ownership, I can see no obvious correlation between the two.
lerouxb 14y ago
We had very many guns per capita by the end of apartheid and people were predicting exactly what you're predicting. Nothing like that happened. The guns were largely destroyed. Now I don't even know anyone that owns one. I don't even know anyone that would argue that a gun would make them safer. But are we at least on the same page that your 300 million guns IS the problem? Potential civil war and all. There are frequent stories of people being killed using their own guns. Guns just escalate situations and they aren't very helpful when your attackers have the initiative. I have been mugged by someone carrying a pistol and I am absolutely sure that the situation wouldn't have played out any different even if I could replay it 100 times and even if I had years of training and even if I carried my own concealed weapon: Walk home in the dark in a bad neighborhood, guy jumps out of nowhere and sticks a pistol in your face, you hand him your wallet that has no cash in it anyway, everyone walks away. Oh I suppose afterwards I could have shot him in the back (if he didn't find my hypothetical concealed weapon) and go to jail for the rest of my life. Yes I agree - it would play out exactly the same if he held a knife against my throat.
- learc83 14y ago
  >We had very many guns per capita by the end of apartheid and people were predicting exactly what you're predicting. Nothing like that happened. The guns were largely destroyed. There would be violence if guns were confiscated. South Africa had nowhere near the guns, and you had nowhere near the gun culture if all of your countrymen allowed their guns to be taken without serious resistance. I don't really care to get into a debate about the merits of owning a gun, I'm just trying to point out the * impossibility* in our current culture of banning firearms. However, I will point out that it's not as clearcut as you say. The statistics for either side are hotly debated. For example the deterrent effect of criminals knowing that citizens are likely to be armed is very hard to quantify. And yes if someone takes you by surprise a gun will be of little use, but being mugged is not the only way to be attacked. Thousands of homeowners have successfully defended themselves with firearms, and thousands of women have successfully defended themselves from sexual assaults with firearms.
- philwelch 14y ago
  The "potential civil war and all" is exactly the point. Private gun ownership is a constitutional right in America because we believe that government is legitimate only with the consent of the governed--and that the people deserve the power to revoke that consent by any means necessary. Historically, the impetus for gun control, and the turning point in the civil rights movement, can both be traced back to the awkward moment in history when American blacks came to this realization. Malcolm X and the founders of the Black Panthers were outspoken about the right to bear arms. Since then, largely by historical accident, the supposed "liberals" in America started caring about every civil right except for gun ownership, and the supposed "conservatives" started caring about guns. But make no mistake--the Second Amendment was, in the 18th, 20th, and 21st century alike, a radical liberal notion.

by learc83 14y ago

lerouxb 14y ago

Look closer at the statistics. Just like most other countries it is mostly people killing people they know within their own communities. Typically relatives. Look at what they use to kill each other, how many people they kill per incident, the demographics of the people doing the killing and being killed, etc. A crazy high percentage is things like off-duty cops using their service pistols to kill their own families, for example. We're a messed up country for all sorts of other reasons that are obviously too long to go into here. But we don't have people regularly shooting up schools, malls and cinemas. (And South Africa as an example made up maybe 10% of my comment.)

learc83 14y ago
>But we don't have people regularly shooting up schools, malls and cinemas. That's the point--we don't either. The number of American's killed in mass shootings is statistically insignificant. You don't base public policy on a few dozen people killed per year. There has to be some threshold before you start banning things. If for instance banning M rated video games would save 20 people per year should we do it? If you want to talk about gun control a mass shooting that killed a dozen people is completely insignificant. No one would even bat an eyelash if 3 gangbangers killed 5 people each that same day.
- lerouxb 14y ago
  Perhaps. The fact still stands that with less guns you'll have less gun-related violence. If you have 300 million guns now, how many will you have in a generation? No one can argue against there being a correlation between number of guns and number of gun related crimes. America obviously needs gun control and I don't particularly care if it takes talking about massacres or gangbangers to get there. Clearly people don't care as much about dead gangbangers..
  - learc83 14y ago
    >America obviously needs gun control and I don't particularly care if it takes talking about massacres or gangbangers to get there. What is it about American gun control in particular that causes Europeans/South Africans/Canadians/Australians to care so much about what goes on in another country? If it were just about saving lives you should get much more upset about the smoking rate in china, or parts of europe for that matter. For instance you won't find me insisting that Switzerland pass harsh anti-smoking laws because I think they should, regardless of what their citizens want, just because they have more smoking related deaths than we do. >No one can argue against there being a correlation between number of guns and number of gun related crimes. Actually there are plenty of examples of countries where that doesn't hold. For example our gun ownership is much higher than any country in the top 20 for intentional homicides. And Canada, Switzerland, France, Sweden and Norway have a very large amount of guns, but very low homicide rates. Should Canada get rid of their guns as well? They have half the guns, but far less than half the murders. If guns were causing homicides what explains all of these anomalies? In fact from comparing the wikipedia list of countries by intentional homicide rate to countries by gun ownership, I can see no obvious correlation between the two.

lerouxb 14y ago

We had very many guns per capita by the end of apartheid and people were predicting exactly what you're predicting. Nothing like that happened. The guns were largely destroyed. Now I don't even know anyone that owns one. I don't even know anyone that would argue that a gun would make them safer. But are we at least on the same page that your 300 million guns IS the problem? Potential civil war and all. There are frequent stories of people being killed using their own guns. Guns just escalate situations and they aren't very helpful when your attackers have the initiative. I have been mugged by someone carrying a pistol and I am absolutely sure that the situation wouldn't have played out any different even if I could replay it 100 times and even if I had years of training and even if I carried my own concealed weapon: Walk home in the dark in a bad neighborhood, guy jumps out of nowhere and sticks a pistol in your face, you hand him your wallet that has no cash in it anyway, everyone walks away. Oh I suppose afterwards I could have shot him in the back (if he didn't find my hypothetical concealed weapon) and go to jail for the rest of my life. Yes I agree - it would play out exactly the same if he held a knife against my throat.

learc83 14y ago
>We had very many guns per capita by the end of apartheid and people were predicting exactly what you're predicting. Nothing like that happened. The guns were largely destroyed. There would be violence if guns were confiscated. South Africa had nowhere near the guns, and you had nowhere near the gun culture if all of your countrymen allowed their guns to be taken without serious resistance. I don't really care to get into a debate about the merits of owning a gun, I'm just trying to point out the * impossibility* in our current culture of banning firearms. However, I will point out that it's not as clearcut as you say. The statistics for either side are hotly debated. For example the deterrent effect of criminals knowing that citizens are likely to be armed is very hard to quantify. And yes if someone takes you by surprise a gun will be of little use, but being mugged is not the only way to be attacked. Thousands of homeowners have successfully defended themselves with firearms, and thousands of women have successfully defended themselves from sexual assaults with firearms.
philwelch 14y ago
The "potential civil war and all" is exactly the point. Private gun ownership is a constitutional right in America because we believe that government is legitimate only with the consent of the governed--and that the people deserve the power to revoke that consent by any means necessary. Historically, the impetus for gun control, and the turning point in the civil rights movement, can both be traced back to the awkward moment in history when American blacks came to this realization. Malcolm X and the founders of the Black Panthers were outspoken about the right to bear arms. Since then, largely by historical accident, the supposed "liberals" in America started caring about every civil right except for gun ownership, and the supposed "conservatives" started caring about guns. But make no mistake--the Second Amendment was, in the 18th, 20th, and 21st century alike, a radical liberal notion.