When does gun control become too controlling?

[68w_]

Is there any valid reason for gun control? If so, how do you impose your policies without compromising the defense of law abiding citizens? Been thinking about this a lot lately. Your thoughts would be highly appreciated.

 

Is there any valid reason for gun control? If so, how do you impose your policies without compromising the defense of law abiding citizens? Been thinking about this a lot lately. Your thoughts would be highly appreciated.

That's the argument against gun control in the States, a place where guns are already and have been rampant since the dawn of the country. In a country like Canada that has significantly fewer guns in circulation among the citizens, gun control is a better counter-measure against gun violence as a whole. The only time lax gun laws are a good method of prevention gun violence is when there are too many guns to control in the first place.

 

That's the argument against gun control in the States, a place where guns are already and have been rampant since the dawn of the country. In a country like Canada that has significantly fewer guns in circulation among the citizens, gun control is a better counter-measure against gun violence as a whole. The only time lax gun laws are a good method of prevention gun violence is when there are too many guns to control in the first place.

Switzerland has one of the lowest homocide rates in the world yet one of the highest rates of gun ownership, including fully automatic military rifles which are kept in houses as part of the country's militia.

It's intellectually bankrupt to continue holding the hypothesis that guns = gun crime when significant empirical evidence to the contrary exists

 

[68w_]

It's intellectually bankrupt to continue holding the hypothesis that guns = gun crime when significant empirical evidence to the contrary exists

I agree with you. It's almost cliche at this point to say "criminals don't follow the law, so gun laws don't make sense", but good logic is good logic regardless.

 

Switzerland has one of the lowest homocide rates in the world yet one of the highest rates of gun ownership, including fully automatic military rifles which are kept in houses as part of the country's militia.

It's intellectually bankrupt to continue holding the hypothesis that guns = gun crime when significant empirical evidence to the contrary exists

I agree with you. It's almost cliche at this point to say "criminals don't follow the law, so gun laws don't make sense", but good logic is good logic regardless.

Switzerland has a population of 8 million people and far better services for dealing with things like mental health and poverty. 7.7% of people in Switzerland live under the poverty line, whereas 15% of the 319 million people living in the US are living in poverty. Top it off with a culture of aggression in the US and you're looking at a recipe for disaster. I don't think I need to outline the correlation between these common statistics and gun violence, but I can if I must.

My entire argument is not against lax gun control. My argument is that strict and lax gun control only work at the extremes of either end. Strict gun laws work well when there are fewer guns in circulation. Less strict gun laws work when there are too many guns in circulation.

 

[Spyder69]

IMO, comes down to the culture and society, if someone wants to kill someone, they will with whatever means available. Look at Israel as your best example; knife attacks daily because they don't have access to firearms. 50 dead in a knife attack in China. Or the recent axe attacks in Germany.

Germany axe attack: Assault on train in Wuerzburg injures HK family - BBC News

Disturbing shit like that ^

I would take an attack by firearm over an axe/knife any day of the year. Why? Because many times people miss, even our law enforcement admits to the fact that under most circumstances they don't have the time to actually use their sights to aim

http://www.theppsc.org/Staff_Views/Aveni/OIS.pdf

What we might loosely construe from the limited NYPD data is that officers (70% of the time) are in fact already “point-shooting” in a very real sense, and that it could be the reason why hit probabilities appear so dismal.

Data might be old, but further down you find that 0-2 yards hit-percentage is only 38% in a gunfight.

Point is, these are trained officers that have to qualify with their firearm. Now, compare that to untrained thugs that have zero training, firing wildly, yeah, again i'd gladly take my chances in a shooting than someone swinging an axe or knife.

NOW, as for gun bans, there's no definitive answer. You can have someone with a clean background walk into a gun shop who has the intent to kill someone and we'd never know it. As the points I made above though, if someone wants to kill someone, they'll do it regardless of their access to a firearm.

The only bans I support are for those that have committed violent crimes of ANY nature. I really don't think anyone with any form of past violence should be allowed to handle a firearm. But banning such-and-such weapon outright? No, it's just plain stupid. Like in CA with their recent bans on "assault rifles" that are coming down the pipe and magazine capacity, they're utterly fucking pointless. Why? Because you can buy a kit online to build your own AR, and magazine capacity is a myth. Reloading takes a fraction of a second even for most inexperienced users. There was a sheriff who actually made a video of a girl going through several magazines of different capacities and the difference between expending all ammunition and reloading was literally like 1-3 seconds or something.

In the end, it doesn't really matter. If criminals want firearms they'll get them.