Hey Bilby I thought Australia had gun control?

[Emily Lake]

For consideration in this derail, only about half the households in the US have firearms, and the majority of those only have one. Rural areas have more households with firearms... but they also have more bears and mountain lions and wolves, and they do more hunting. There's a relatively small number of households in the US that have crazy numbers of firearms.

 

[laughing dog]

The vast majority of gun violence in the US is committed by criminals, not by law abiding citizens.

How could it possibly be otherwise?

That you consider this a point worth making shows just how hopelessly lost you are.

Either I wasn't clear, or you're oversimplifying it for no reason.

So let me be more specific: The vast majority of gun violence in the US is committed by people who already had a history of violent criminal offenses such as gang members, drug dealers, etc. Most of those didn't get their guns legally in the first place. Very little of it is committed by people who had clean records and just went over the edge.

First, reducing gun violence is good, regardless of the source.

Second, effective gun regulation works to reduce gun ownership by everyone.

The USA has a gun problem. There are too many firearms out. Now, do I think the citizenry of the US is ready to do the long hardwork of amending the Constitution and changing our collective fucked up obsession with firearms? Now, I don’t.

I agree that reducing gun violence is good. I am not convinced that effective gun regulation will effectively reduce gun violence in the US, when the guns were illegally acquired by violent criminals in the first place. If you can convince me that making it significantly harder for law abiding citizens to own firearms is going to reduce the number of guns in the hands of drug dealers and gang members, I'm open to it.

Fewer guns mean fewer guns acquired by everyone - legally or illegally.

Why on earth do you think this? It's kind of the exact opposite of the argument when it comes to drugs - where making them legal is supposed to result in lower rates of addiction and deaths, and remove the appeal of them being taboo and counterculture. Are you also for much stricter drug laws?

Try this thought experiment. Suppose 80% of all US firearms in private hands disappeared or became dysfunctions. You don’t think gun violence wouldn’t be reduced?

The argument for legalizing drugs is to reduce the expense of obtaining them which would 1)reduce theft and robbery
2) reduce the use of more dangerous methods of taking them, and
3) to provide less incentive to mix in mire dangerous ingredients.
In addition, legalization reduces the stress and expense on the criminal justice system.

I cannot imagine how making guns easy to get is remotely similar.

 

[laughing dog]

For consideration in this derail, only about half the households in the US have firearms, and the majority of those only have one. Rural areas have more households with firearms... but they also have more bears and mountain lions and wolves, and they do more hunting. There's a relatively small number of households in the US that have crazy numbers of firearms.

According to this  Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country the proportion of US households with at least one handgun (21.9%) is more than double than the next highest (Switzerland, 10.9%). The table shows there is no country in the table with a 30% rate for household firearms, with most less than 10%.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

The vast majority of gun violence in the US is committed by criminals, not by law abiding citizens.

How could it possibly be otherwise?

That you consider this a point worth making shows just how hopelessly lost you are.

Either I wasn't clear, or you're oversimplifying it for no reason.

So let me be more specific: The vast majority of gun violence in the US is committed by people who already had a history of violent criminal offenses such as gang members, drug dealers, etc. Most of those didn't get their guns legally in the first place. Very little of it is committed by people who had clean records and just went over the edge.

Where do those illegal guns come from? The answer is that at one time they were legal weapons. Reduce greatly the availability of legal weapons, and this will flow on to there being much less illegal guns.

Whereas the severely limited self defense options of places like Australia strongly favor the criminals.

And yet, crime rates in Australia are FAR lower than those in the US. Suggesting that your beautiful hypothesis is unable to defend itself against beastly facts.

Some crime rates are lower, and it leads to a case where the aggregate rate is lower. But some types of crime rates are higher - rape, assault, and burglary are higher per capita in AU than the US.

Australia vs United States: Crime Facts and Stats

Intentional homicide rate, Crime levels, Rape rate, Murder rate per million people, Murder rate and 78 More Interesting Facts and Stats

www.nationmaster.com

It's very difficult to compare an overall crime rate when the laws are different on certain things. AU's gun control will absolutely result in a lower crime rate for all things that involve guns - duh. Similarly, the ease of acquiring illegal drugs results in different offending rates where drug use is involved (not necessarily just direct use or possession crimes).

I'm not saying that the US is better. We have many, many, many problems. I'm only saying that a high level comparison isn't really useful, nor is a simple "gun control!" proposal a viable solution to the problems that the US has. US problems are not the same as AU problems, it's not reasonable to think that the way AU addresses issues is the best way for the US to do so.

There is a minor higher reported rape rate in Australia. Do you know why that is? The rape rate in USA is actually higher, but less are reported, because often it is not worth the effort of trying to report it as such is greatly discouraged in USA by a process that makes it difficult to report rapes.

 

[Emily Lake]

Fewer guns mean fewer guns acquired by everyone - legally or illegally.

Why on earth do you think this? It's kind of the exact opposite of the argument when it comes to drugs - where making them legal is supposed to result in lower rates of addiction and deaths, and remove the appeal of them being taboo and counterculture. Are you also for much stricter drug laws?

Try this thought experiment. Suppose 80% of all US firearms in private hands disappeared or became dysfunctions. You don’t think gun violence wouldn’t be reduced?

Counter: You're talking about 80% of the LEGALLY OWNED firearms in private hands. Which doesn't at all address the firearms that were illegally acquired in the first place. Are you assuming that the drug dealers and gang members are going to voluntarily surrender their illegal firearms?

For your second point, of course it would be reduced... just not materially. Because again, the vast majority of the gun violence in the US is being committed by people who illegally acquired their guns in the first place, and it's associated with people who already have criminal histories and who are actively engaged in significant violent criminal activity. So yes, technically, you'll reduce some gun violence on the edges - but since the majority of gun violence isn't coming from law abiding citizens, taking the guns away from the non-crime-committing non-violent citizens isn't going to affect the behavior of criminally-involved already-violent people.

The argument for legalizing drugs is to reduce the expense of obtaining them which would
1)reduce theft and robbery
2) reduce the use of more dangerous methods of taking them, and
3) to provide less incentive to mix in mire dangerous ingredients.
In addition, legalization reduces the stress and expense on the criminal justice system.

I cannot imagine how making guns easy to get is remotely similar.

I'm not saying that making guns easy to get is similar - they're already easy to get, and in my view too easy to get. What I'm saying is that making them *harder* to get will *introduce* risks that don't currently exist because *you aren't addressing the cause of gun violence*.

I know it's trite, but that oversimplified adage of "guns don't kill people, people kill people" has a kernel of truth to it. If you don't have a plan for reducing drug dealers, cartel activity, organized crime, and gangs... then removing guns from law abiding citizens isn't going to materially reduce gun violence in the US, because the law abiding citizens that you're seizing guns from aren't the ones doing the violence in the first place.

 

[bilby]

For consideration in this derail, only about half the households in the US have firearms, and the majority of those only have one. Rural areas have more households with firearms... but they also have more bears and mountain lions and wolves, and they do more hunting. There's a relatively small number of households in the US that have crazy numbers of firearms.

IMO, one is a crazy number of firearms to have in a suburban household.

Guns are not defensive in nature; Having one in your house increases your family's risk, it doesn't decrease it.

I have zero problem with guns for hunting or for sport; But the very idea of a gun for self defence shows a horrifying lack of understanding of what a gun is, and what it can and can't do.