Why do you own a gun?

 

Reality check here: I cannot take away any of your guns. Neither can Dean. Even if I had a restraining order against you for threats or stalking, your guns would not be taken away. If you were on the no-fly list (thanks to our idiotic republican senators), your guns cannot be taken away. So why are you getting so aggressive towards people that have no power to take away your guns, but are just expressing their opinions, which is that we think that there are too many guns in the hands of private owners in the US?

 

Your first post noted that you have 21 firearms. This is not a "level of protection" that anyone needs, even in a place with lots of gang violence (I grew up in NYC in the 1970s, so I get gang violence, believe me).  You just like owning guns. We can't stop you. We just don't like guns and have used this forum to say so.

 

30,000 people every year get shot in America.  This is exponentially larger than any other country in the world - in fact, larger than all other countries (that don't happen to be currently involved in a war) combined.  Many people think that this number is way too high, and that we would like to see fewer guns out there. I think that it is worth keeping assault weapons out of the hands of civilians if it keeps children from dying (the guns used in the CT shooting were bought legally by a mentally ill man).  That's my opinion.

 

Worth noting is that gun control stems gun violence, which is good, but not necessarily (emphasis on the word "necessarily" mind you) violence in general. The reason why America's shootings are so alarming to the rest of the world is because all its violence is in one place– one statistic. Fewer people would care if that statistic was spread out. It seems some politicians care much more about that aspect (America's social standing with the rest of the world). If/when stricter gun control is enacted, the number of shootings will probably go down as they have in other countries. Fantastic. I'm all for it. But many will say "problem solved," if violent attempts overall hasn't gone down or has only gone down a small fraction. If the point is brought up, they will say, "welp, can't change society." Which leads me to ask if people would actually care about shootings if the media wasn't pushing the panic button and exploiting the situation, leading people to rant about it all over social media.

 

yes, I agree with you on the use of that term. It's outrageous.

 

I would also like to add that my grandfather entered this country illegally, which had everything to do with his immigration status and nothing to do with his status as a human being.

 

the point is someone can overstay their visa, for example, and therefore is in the country illegally.  That doesn't make the person illegal, just his immigration status.

 

"Illegal" is pejorative, in that it implies that it is the person rather than his status that is illegitimate.

 

You can argue that the desires of the majority should not be codified into law, but I'm not sure what else you would base legislation on. Only unpopular views?

 

As long as a law is not in contravention of the constitution, a legislature can pass it (they can pass it if it is unconstitutional, too, but it will be struck down). A majority of voters can prefer a law that states that the 10 commandments must be displayed in every schoolroom, but the supreme court would strike down such a law.  Similarly, many states passed laws allowing gay marriage, but it took a supreme court ruling to make it the law in all 50 states, even those states in which laws had been passed specifically outlawing it.

 

Laws restricting gun ownership would not discriminate against minorities under the law. Laws state you cannot discriminate against people because of their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Gun restrictions that applied to everyone across the spectrum couldn't possibly be discriminatory.

 

In a democracy, the majority gets to say what the laws should be.  I'm sorry to disagree strongly, but your entire premise is just very odd.

I actually made my point in the post. The numbers should not be comparable yet they are. But since the USA car related deaths statistics are somewhat higher than every other first world country even though the same vehicles are used everywhere, has (practically) the same mandatory seat belt laws and has a lower national speed limit than most European countries then the number of firearm related deaths is even more disproportionate.

I've not looked into road safety and have no inclination to do so, therefore I don't know why you are three times more likely to die on American roads than British ones, or why an American owned car is two and a half times more likely to kill someone, or why you're twice as likely to be killed per mile driven - so as I said, no matter how you count it, the USA is lagging behind by an appreciable amount. As the USA seems to have all the requisite laws and regulations perhaps the problem is abiding by them and/or enforcing them.

I've never advocated banning guns, (or cars), nor would I. However, I can see no valid reason for automatic and semi-automatic weapons to be in private or civilian ownership. If you feel you need a gun for protection then that's okay by me; if you like collecting antique firearms to look at but have no intention of ever firing them then I see no problem with carefully removing a vital part of the firing mechanism and not keeping any ammunition so to prevent them being used in anger; if you like to hunt with a single-shot firearm then I can't condone that but as an omnivore it would be a little hypocritical of me to object to it outright; if you like to fire lumps of lead at paper targets for sport then once again, I have no problem with that. 

I did and you are quite capable of doing the same. What figure would you like to see - the 80% of mass-shootings committed using legally obtained firearms statistic? Not what you're after? So you want to show that a high percentage of gun deaths were caused by criminals with illegal guns: how about 84% of all illegally owned guns used in violent crime were stolen from legal owners? Is that the kind of statistic I should be looking for?

Let's be serious here: Gun manufacturers don't make illegal weapons - not one. Reputable gun dealers do not sell illegal weapons - not one. Honest owners of legal guns do not resell them illegally - not one. Law abiding citizens don't break laws - not one... So where do "illegal" weapons come from, who makes them and what is it exactly that makes them "illegal"?

Well we could but I'm not going to bother because it misses the point, it's not about which thing kills more people. I brought it up because Teo posted that some Americans were objecting to Driving Licences and my incredulity was that gun death had overtaken car death as a major killer of human beings and suggested that traffic safety regulations and laws may have had something to do with that.

In the USA the number of car related deaths has decreased from around 50,000 to 30,000 in the past 40 years whereas the number of gun related deaths has varied around the 30,000 mark but shows no general trend in either direction over the same interval. The former is [fairly] well regulated and the latter (despite your protestations) is not well regulated.

If all things were equal then these figures for each category would be the same everywhere so when there is a statistical outlier then something is very much not equal. While I've shown that car deaths in the usa are between 2 and 3 times higher than in the uk, gun deaths are 40 times higher therefore it really doesn't make any difference what the comparisons are for tobacco, abortions or falling off ladders.

Well played. I have politely turned down the opportunity to live in yours on two separate occasions. Of course there were a number of factors that contributed to my decision and the safety of my family was one of them. (Raffles the Gentleman Thief is fictional, our real criminals are nasty pieces of work).

No it doesn't matter. You don't need lots of ineffectual laws, you only need one effective one.

As a liberal (small "L") I don't hate guns, as I have been told many times: Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People [with Guns], and I can't argue with that kind of logic. As pieces of engineering I quite like well made guns; my grandfather, father and father-in-law have all legally owned shotguns and my late uncle was a gun collector and secretary of a police gun club, so while I only ever owned air pistols and air rifles myself, I have handled and fired a variety of guns. I've killed hundreds of sheets of paper, dozens of tin cans and even managed to wing a few clays. However, the only time I've ever killed an animal was (like Teri) when it threw itself under the wheels of my car, and yes like the true bleeding heart liberal that I am, I cried real tears. 

Would I like to see less murder, mass shootings and massacres? Yup. I sincerely believe that the number of mass-shootings and massacres would be significantly fewer if there were no semi-automatic weapons in civilian ownership. I sincerely believe that the number of illegally owned guns would decrease if there were fewer legally owned ones for the criminals to steal. 

I've tried to track-down that research paper but cannot find it so I cannot comment on it. Then I've not found any pro-gun websites that cite it either. 

So instead of that here's a question: will the number of gun-related murders increase, decrease or stay the same if criminals knew they weren't going to be shot at by civilians?

You were never meant to appreciate it, it was a direct response to your tautology; by definition a criminal is someone who has no regard for the law. Owning a gun hasn't stopped your criminals from shooting innocent civilians every day thus far so that approach isn't working.

[erm, ticking "no" to that question will allow the purchase of a gun. Also in most states private sellers do not need to use that form.]

I looked at it which is why I raised the UK version of the same question. There is a huge difference here and this is also why I raised the issue of effective and ineffective laws. 

My statement on UK law said: "...in the UK you will be refused a gun licence if there is a history, or perceived likelihood, of domestic violence", whereas your form 4473 asks: "have you been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence?".