Gun laws in USA

stevieg8 wrote:McLewis, the problem with your argument is within the nature of the laws passed: there are no customs checks entering Chicago city limits, or crossing state borders into Illinois. As long as it is legal for someone to buy an automatic weapon elsewhere in the country, weapons bans will not have the desired effect. A recent study found that 1 in 5 guns recovered at NYC crime scenes were purchased legally in Virginia and then carried across state lines.

The "guns don't kill people" argument doesn't work either, because the purpose of guns IS to kill. When the Sandy Hook crisis occurred there were the predictable political fights all over Facebook, and one kid tried to cite a recent mass-stabbing in China as evidence that attacks will occur regardless of access to weaponry. But that event resulted in no deaths.

I'm not saying ban all guns, but there's a huge realm of middle-ground between that and what we have right now. Banning assault weapons, automatic handguns, and beginning with common sense regulations like waiting periods, background checks and requiring licenses for all firearms (which currently does not occur with longhandled weapons in most states) is not a crazy idea. It just needs to occur at a higher level than it is currently, because city- or state-wide legislation will not have an impact.

stevieg8 wrote:Grenades are already banned for ANY civilian usage, which is precisely how I can prove your argument wrong.

You want to talk about a slippery slope, which is a logical fallacy. Instead, I'd like to talk about legal precedent and strict guidelines for the restrictions. The question one has to ask isn't "what is used in a mass killing?" but "what tool makes it easiest to kill people?" You bring up handguns; I explicitly referenced those in my post - and in fact, they're more heavily regulated than long-handle rifles. The point is, it is HARDER to kill large number of people without a gun than with one. Case in point: the example of mass knifing at a school in China, where similar numbers were injured to Sandy Hook, but - and this is crucial - no one died.

Would you like to compare knife death per capita in the countries listed above with gun deaths in the United States? Firearms account for over 50% of all homicides committed in the United States, and handguns are over 90% of those (source: Bureau of Justice Statistics). The United States also has the highest per capita homicide rate of any Western country, once again beating out every single country listed in the above infographic. In all of Europe, only Belarus, Ukraine, Estonia and Lithuania are higher than the United States (source for both sentences: UNODC). You're really telling me banning and restricting use of firearms - yes, not just assault rifles, but handguns too - wouldn't help? Believe it all you want, but the facts don't support you.

The only reason there are any studies citing trends showing gun control laws as not working is because of the lack of surveillance over state borders in the US. I've read the studies; they ignore the international data, all of which works against them, and they fail to account for prevalence of urban areas, the only reason it looks like New York has more of a gun problem than Mississippi or Alaska in the first place. The numbers flat out do not support the position you're proposing, and there is NO argument based in reason that can be made in favor of the current state of gun laws in this country.

And don't even get me started on the absolute cliff of political philosophy you toss us off of by arguing from the standpoint of vigilantism. It undermines the most crucial philosophical underpinnings of democracy. Thomas Hobbes must be spinning in his grave.

stevieg8 wrote:But I already DID acknowledge that. I'm not saying "ban guns!", and if you think that's a way to summarize my argument, you didn't read it.

Look, I'm not from cozy suburban areas. I'm not from 40 minutes outside of the dangerous areas. I grew up in an inner city, albeit a small one, which is within the top 20 most dangerous urban areas in the US. I moved for school from there to a city which is even more dangerous in sections of it. I have never carried a weapon, nor have any of my friends, nor anyone in my family. So please don't talk to me like I'm ignorant of the circumstances.

You're right, banning guns will not immediately get them off the street. But through enforcement, over time, the number of guns held illegally or legally will decrease dramatically. Without a source within the US, it will be VERY difficult to gain access to weapons, and the number of firearms will gradually go down.

This is the ONLY way to go about it. Because we're not talking about isolated nuts. You want to know what percentage of the homicides I'm talking about are the result of mass shootings like Sandy Hook? It's less than .01%. That number drops even farther if we expand the category to all gun deaths, which includes accidental deaths - of which there are many. As you should know from your reference of Detroit, we're NOT talking isolated incidents. We're talking an epidemic of murders, with people dying on a daily basis.

These things happen regardless of the gun laws in the state, so the protection argument doesn't work either. Texas, the only state both with lax gun laws AND a major prevalence of urban areas also happens to be the supposed outlier (according to conservatives) where lax guns laws ARE correlated with higher death rates. Furthermore, we see mass shootings at places with professional armed guards on a regular basis - Fort Hood anyone?

The fact is that arming more people does not help; it leads to MORE crime, not less, and it leads to more bystanders getting hurt in a crossfire. There are studies on this, and the numbers once again are clear. Providing firearms to more people does not help protect them, it in fact puts them at risk. You're right, there will be difficulties that arise from strengthening gun laws, but over the course of a few years numbers will start to drop. And every study out there says that those difficulties will not include criminals growing bolder with the knowledge people aren't carrying guns. It simply doesn't correlate like that in the other places gun laws have been strengthened.

stevieg8 wrote:Even more importantly than that, though, is the implications to political philosophy of your argument. Most people don't care about this, but if you want to talk about a slippery slope, lets examine a real one:

Thomas Hobbes, one of the founders of liberal political thought (liberal in the old sense, not the Dems vs. Republicans sense), posited that all humans exist in a state of natural law. Natural law grants everyone the right to everything, inevitably leading to conflict as two people wish to control the same resource/mate/territory/whatever. This situation guarantees no safety for anyone, and life is "nasty, brutish and short."

Nobody likes this situation, because you can be killed at any moment. So to escape the violent nature of natural law, people come together and make contracts. "I won't kill you if you don't kill me," etc. Now these contracts mean nothing without enforcement, because otherwise the first person to want something the other person has will simply kill them. The protection only lasts until a conflict arises, and then it disappears.

The contracts need to be enforced, and they need to be enforced by an arbitrary force. Otherwise, one member of the contract will be allowed to do whatever they please, and state that they were not violating the contract - no one else will have recourse against it, because there is no other enforcer to appeal to. This is the situation of monarchy.

Instead what we have as enforcement is the law. The law is arbitrary because it is a concept, not an individual. This concept applies itself through the actions of people, but it stands above those enforcers as well - it applies to all. The conclusion of all this, as everyone can see, is democracy. how do we ensure that the law is applied equally to everyone? By putting it in the hands of society as a whole. Because the laws are created by the people (or, in most cases, by representatives of the people), they become an embodiment of the social contracts being signed and cannot be escaped by any one enforcer.

What the argument for "protection" (or, as it is more accurately called, vigilantism) does is clear: by making every individual, not just representatives of the state, active enforcers of the law - with a weapon and the right to use it - the contracts are undermined. Now, anyone who pleases can violate the contract - in this case, as simple as "do not murder" - in the name of enforcement. And guess where the primary witness against their alibi is? Dead.

Just look at the recent case with Trayvon Martin. Even with a "stand your ground" law, which most states don't have, self defense is pretty difficult to prove. In other states, Zimmerman would have no legal defense simply because he APPROACHED Martin before anything happened - if you have the ability to escape, even if that is summarized as being somewhat more fit than your attacker, self defense gets thrown out of the court in most of the northeast and west coast.

You want to protect yourself against burglars and home intruders? That's fine, those cases are much more clear cut (most of the time). And as you already stated, you could do that with a baseball bat or a knife if you had to. Under what I said earlier, you could go get yourself a license for a handgun, wait a week for it to be processed and them to make sure you're not crazy, and then keep it in your nightstand, never to show up again unless you need it.

But the right to walk around with it in your pocket, so that you can fire if you feel threatened? You're undermining democracy. Why don't we spend our time and considerable brainpower working on improving our police forces, or better yet fixing the socio-economic problems in cities like Detroit that LEAD to the high crime rates? Sure, it may be more difficult, but at least we're not taking steps back towards "nasty, brutish and short."

barca 2011 wrote:

McLewis wrote:I still don't think just banning all guns is the answer. The right to bear arms is firmly ingrained in America's culture. It's just who we are as Americans. I personally have never used a gun before because I've never been in a situation where I've needed to, as have millions of other Americans. If I ever found myself in a situation where a gun would come in handy though to protect myself and my family, then absolutely I would own a gun and use it if I needed to.

Chances are though that if that situation were to arise, it'd be too late. I don't mean just mass shootings either. If disaster were to happen chances are you'd come across someone who's armed before you've armed yourself. I'm in the same boat. I agree that banning guns is not the answer and although I've never used a firearm I think that everyone should have at least one for protection and thats where things get blurry. Who is fit to have one and who shouldn't?

rwo power wrote:There is one thing that just sprang to my mind - don't you think it is sad that in a country that considers itself highly civilised and the epitome of Western culture and morals, the majority of citizens seem to feel they need a killing weapon to feel safe?