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Look closer at the statistics. Just like most other countries it is mostly people killing people they know within their own communities. Typically relatives. Lo

by 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
      > 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? I guess a lot of people (me included) would sleep better in a world that had less guns. America is a large market for guns, which cause them to be developed and manufactured, which makes guns available and cheap. If America stopped buying guns many (most?) arms manufacturers would probably go away. Countries like America, Russia and China sell or give these guns to "problem" countries which are often our neighbors and then the guns are in the system and coming across the border (and no we don't think that us arming ourselves in turn is a good or desireable solution) and before long there are hundreds of millions of guns all over the world. Which many of us consider a problem. Sortof like if America didn't buy lots of iPads and if China didn't manufacture them cheaply then they might never exist in the first place. So people smoking in China is perhaps not a perfect analogy as it doesn't affect us much. (Please don't stop buying gadgets ;) America isn't isolated. What you do affects the whole world. What every country does affects the whole world. We're all very aware of what happens in America because it has a disproportionately large affect on us as opposed to what happens in Myanmar. But I agree that we care maybe a little too much :) I suspect you sometimes appear weird and alien and therefore interesting to us. Most civilized country in world in some ways, most uncivilized in others.. --- Edit: I guess in a way whatever you spend your money on affects the whole world just because you're the biggest economy. If you slash NASA's budget it "affects" me. If WebOS is beaten by Android it "affects" me. If you prioritize spending money on guns over something else it "affects" me indirectly just because you're such a big market. In some ways Americans control the budget, priorities and direction of the free world;)
      - learc83 14y ago
        If there is a demand for guns, manufacturers will make them, they aren't very hard to produce. The iPad analogy doesn't work because there isn't much a of a demand in poorer countries for iPads. There is a huge demand in these countries for guns, which again, aren't very hard to make. Look at the kind of guns found in the third world (that could find there way into your country). When is the last time you saw a warlord running around with an M-16. They all have AK-47s for a reason, they are cheap. The AK-47s you still see running around weren't manufactured for the American market they were manufactured for war and no American gun control measures will help. If America banned guns, at best you might see a reduction in expensive American market guns, but again those aren't the guns used in poorer countries--they would still be made. >I guess a lot of people (me included) would sleep better in a world that had less guns. Guns are what enabled the radical equality of the modern age? The reason that we don't have a dominant warrior class controlling everything. A gun allows a 110 pound woman to stand up to a 200 pound man, a poorly trained peasant to stand up to a feudal knight, an old man to a young one. Without guns modern society wouldn't have been possible. If you could magically wish away all the guns, how long do you think it would take for our society to stratify around a martial class again?

by lerouxb 14y ago

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
    > 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? I guess a lot of people (me included) would sleep better in a world that had less guns. America is a large market for guns, which cause them to be developed and manufactured, which makes guns available and cheap. If America stopped buying guns many (most?) arms manufacturers would probably go away. Countries like America, Russia and China sell or give these guns to "problem" countries which are often our neighbors and then the guns are in the system and coming across the border (and no we don't think that us arming ourselves in turn is a good or desireable solution) and before long there are hundreds of millions of guns all over the world. Which many of us consider a problem. Sortof like if America didn't buy lots of iPads and if China didn't manufacture them cheaply then they might never exist in the first place. So people smoking in China is perhaps not a perfect analogy as it doesn't affect us much. (Please don't stop buying gadgets ;) America isn't isolated. What you do affects the whole world. What every country does affects the whole world. We're all very aware of what happens in America because it has a disproportionately large affect on us as opposed to what happens in Myanmar. But I agree that we care maybe a little too much :) I suspect you sometimes appear weird and alien and therefore interesting to us. Most civilized country in world in some ways, most uncivilized in others.. --- Edit: I guess in a way whatever you spend your money on affects the whole world just because you're the biggest economy. If you slash NASA's budget it "affects" me. If WebOS is beaten by Android it "affects" me. If you prioritize spending money on guns over something else it "affects" me indirectly just because you're such a big market. In some ways Americans control the budget, priorities and direction of the free world;)
    - learc83 14y ago
      If there is a demand for guns, manufacturers will make them, they aren't very hard to produce. The iPad analogy doesn't work because there isn't much a of a demand in poorer countries for iPads. There is a huge demand in these countries for guns, which again, aren't very hard to make. Look at the kind of guns found in the third world (that could find there way into your country). When is the last time you saw a warlord running around with an M-16. They all have AK-47s for a reason, they are cheap. The AK-47s you still see running around weren't manufactured for the American market they were manufactured for war and no American gun control measures will help. If America banned guns, at best you might see a reduction in expensive American market guns, but again those aren't the guns used in poorer countries--they would still be made. >I guess a lot of people (me included) would sleep better in a world that had less guns. Guns are what enabled the radical equality of the modern age? The reason that we don't have a dominant warrior class controlling everything. A gun allows a 110 pound woman to stand up to a 200 pound man, a poorly trained peasant to stand up to a feudal knight, an old man to a young one. Without guns modern society wouldn't have been possible. If you could magically wish away all the guns, how long do you think it would take for our society to stratify around a martial class again?