Gun Control

[Dannichu]

I think the point Hoity Toity was making was that things wouldn't change in the UK if gun laws were changed, because even if guns were suddenly legal, we're such an anti-gun society, it's not like everyone would run out and buy one.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here. Those places have lax gun laws (and also gunrunning) because they're third-world or wartorn countries. The government in those countries are corrupt! Somalia in particular hasn't had central governmental control since the early nineties or something; it's also one of the poorest (and consequentially, most violent) places in the world. The US is quite decisively not that poor or violent!

While obviously the US and Somalia are very different, some areas of the US are incredibly poverty-ridden, with literacy rates, homicide and other crime figures and life expectancy figures actually pretty similar to some third-world countries.

 

[Crazy Linoone]

I can't say either way because I'm not omniscient. There are too many variables. The number of murders from illegal guns would most likely not be affected considering if someone is murdering someone with an illegal gun they aren't going to pay attention to a gun ban.

But do you agree that if guns are outlawed, the number of people dying from gun accidents would decrease?

Are you telling me that, hypothetically, if you had a gun on you and someone came at you with a knife you wouldn't shoot them? I mean, to answer your question, when it's a choice between their life and mine, I would definitely choose theirs. But it's always as a last resort.

Uh, yes? I think the best thing to do in this case is to run. Seeing that I have no aim (most people don't unless they've practiced), I'll probably get stabbed to death before I get a bullet in. And I think killing someone with my own hands would traumatize me for life more than getting a stab wound ever would.

My point is people will always kill people. It's an undeniable fact. Even if guns had never existed, people would kill people. People killed people long before guns were invented. In the future, a better weapon than a gun will probably be invented, and people will again kill other people with it.

But people didn't kill with as much efficiency before guns were invented. You can perhaps kill one person a minute using a sword, and that is only if they're all standing in a row within reach, but you can kill hundreds a minute with a gun.

I get that guns make it easier to kill than most weapons, but I think complete gun bans are completely impractical, especially in places of high gun ownership. I have no problem with moderate gun control.

Complete gun bans are definitely impractical if you implement it wrongly, but if it's a gradual implementation (first outlaw sell of firearms, then ammunition, then have people turn in the ammunition they've already bought, etc...) I think it would work.

 

[Aobaru]

But do you agree that if guns are outlawed, the number of people dying from gun accidents would decrease?

In all strictness, yes. If you could not buy a gun, you could not later accidentally kill someone with it.

But, again, banning guns is not the answer. This is a common sense issue. Like any dangerous thing (poison, knives, high places), you must take precautions. With poison, you keep it locked away; with knives, you keep them out of reach of children; with high places, you install a railing or something. With guns, you keep them locked away, unloaded, etc. If the gun owner fails to take these precautions, it's his or her fault, not the gun's.

By the way, there were about 1,000 accidental gun deaths in 2007, compared to about 30,000 accidental poisoning deaths. link

Uh, yes? I think the best thing to do in this case is to run. Seeing that I have no aim (most people don't unless they've practiced), I'll probably get stabbed to death before I get a bullet in. And I think killing someone with my own hands would traumatize me for life more than getting a stab wound ever would.

It stands to reason that the majority of people who buy guns learn how to use them.

Maybe you would be traumatized, but I'd rather be traumatized than dead. How about you?

But people didn't kill with as much efficiency before guns were invented. You can perhaps kill one person a minute using a sword, and that is only if they're all standing in a row within reach, but you can kill hundreds a minute with a gun.

I'm not denying that guns make killing easier. No one could ever deny that. I'm saying that completely banning guns isn't the answer.

Complete gun bans are definitely impractical if you implement it wrongly, but if it's a gradual implementation (first outlaw sell of firearms, then ammunition, then have people turn in the ammunition they've already bought, etc...) I think it would work.

Unfortunately, we're going to have to agree to disagree here.

 

[Adriane]

But, again, banning guns is not the answer. This is a common sense issue. Like any dangerous thing (poison, knives, high places), you must take precautions. With poison, you keep it locked away; with knives, you keep them out of reach of children; with high places, you install a railing or something. With guns, you keep them locked away, unloaded, etc. If the gun owner fails to take these precautions, it's his or her fault, not the gun's.

By the way, there were about 1,000 accidental gun deaths in 2007, compared to about 30,000 accidental poisoning deaths. link

How are these even related?? Are you suggesting that poisons be banned instead of guns? What about vehicle accidents? Why don't we ban cars instead? You're going down an unrelated slippery slope. The problem isn't just keeping guns out of childrens' hands; the majority of people shooting or getting shot are adults.

People need to stop rationalising and conjecturing. Telling people that they need to learn how to use/care for a gun isn't really going to help. The United States has public access to firearms; the United States has a much higher rate of gun-related crime than countries with tight gun control. It is a 1:1 correlation.

When people who actually live in countries with gun control are saying they prefer it that way, maybe you should actually stop and think about why they are saying that. If banning guns "isn't the answer", why doesn't everyone else want access to guns?

Why do you want a gun? So you can 'protect' yourself from other people... with guns? It is irony at its greatest.

 

[Music Dragon]

Once again, things like knives and poisonous substances can actually serve some sort of purpose beyond, you know, injuring or killing. Banning kitchen utensils and cleaning agents is impractical for obvious reasons, but you never actually use guns for anything except shooting people.

 

[Furiianda]

Once again, things like knives and poisonous substances can actually serve some sort of purpose beyond, you know, injuring or killing. Banning kitchen utensils and cleaning agents is impractical for obvious reasons, but you never actually use guns for anything except shooting people.

Hey, now, you use them to shoot other things too.
Like animals, food cans, or cardboard cutouts shaped like the things you would shoot.

Anyway, Aobaru, of course you would keep dangerous things locked away, because you have common sense. (Or I should say "sense"; it's not as common as you might believe)
But if making guns a lot harder to get would stop a stupid/inexperienced people getting their hands on them, wouldn't that be a good thing? Even if it's not technically the gun's fault, that doesn't change the fact that guns are used irresponsibly and people die over it. And there seem to be a lot of accidents happening for all the majority of people who own guns knowing all about how to use them...

There's not much to add to the thread that hasn't been said already... meh.

 

[Aobaru]

Once again, things like knives and poisonous substances can actually serve some sort of purpose beyond, you know, injuring or killing. Banning kitchen utensils and cleaning agents is impractical for obvious reasons, but you never actually use guns for anything except shooting people.

Yes, agreed. But what I'm try to convince you of is that guns have a practical purpose as well. For self-defense. And that banning guns completely, rather than implementing reasonable gun control, is impractical and detrimental.

Why has no one brought up the 1997 UK Gan Ban? link tl;dr Gun crime went up 40% after the ban.

 

[hopeandjoy]

Because all the people from the UK are talking about now?

 

[Aobaru]

Because all the people from the UK are talking about now?

That's not why I referenced it. I referenced it to show that that gun ban caused an increase in gun crime.

 

[hopeandjoy]

But the long term effects don't reflect the immediate response.

 

[Aobaru]

I think it was two years later. Is there any evidence that it worked in the long run?

 

[hopeandjoy]

You don't get to keep saying it's impossible to stop gun violence anywhere when places have already eliminated gun violence

Not every crime involves somebody actually getting shot or using an illegal gun. It will be harder to obtain a gun. Most violent crimes in the UK involve knives, not guns.

Scotland has the highest rate of knife crime in the Western world. It also has the highest rate of drug-related crime in the world (the USA is third, by the way). But you know what isn't a problem? Gun crime. Funny that.

And yet, in countries where guns are actually outlawed, criminals for some reason aren't running around killing everyone with illegally procured firearms.

Okay, I can totally get the reasoning behind there then being a black market for guns. But. Ammo is expensive even in places where guns are legal and is also consumable. If I recall something I read correctly, most of the gun crime in the UK? Isn't that effective! While some people have guns, it's a hell of a lot harder to keep getting ammo, so people try doing things like reusing spent cases.

 

[Aobaru]

Let me rephrase: Has there been a study conducted saying that the 1997 UK gun ban has resulted in lower gun crime rates?

 

[Pwnemon]

My favorite quote is the one where Tailsy tries to rebut Aobaru's statement that people without guns will just kill each other in other ways by saying Scotland has the worst knife crime in the Western world.

 

[ultraviolet]

it seems that everything's kind of contradicting itself with regard to that gun law, but I think it's to do with a change in reporting practices or somesuch. From Wikipedia:

Since 1998, the number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales increased by 110%,[38] from 2,378 in 1998/99 to 5,001 in 2005/06. Most of the rise in injuries were in the category slight injuries from the non-air weapons. "Slight" in this context means an injury that was not classified as "serious" (i.e., did not require detention in hospital, did not involve fractures, concussion, severe general shock, penetration by a bullet or multiple shot wounds). In 2005/06, 87% of such injuries were defined as "slight," which includes the use of firearms as a threat only. In 2007, the British government was accused by Shadow Home Secretary David Davis of making "inaccurate and misleading" statements claiming that gun crime was falling, after official figures showed that gun-related killings and injuries recorded by police had risen more than fourfold since 1998, mainly due to a rise in non-fatal injuries.[39][40] Justice Minister Mr Jack Straw told the BBC, "We are concerned that within the overall record, which is a good one, of crime going down in the last 10-11 years, the number of gun-related incidents has gone up. But it has now started to fall."[41]

In 2008 The Independent reported that there were 42 gun-related deaths in Great Britain, a 20-year low.[42] However, in late 2009 The Telegraph reported that gun crime had doubled in the last 10 years, with an increase in both firearms offences and deaths. A government spokesman said this increase was a result of a change in reporting practices in 2001 and that gun crime had actually fallen since 2005. Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary (an opposition party spokesperson), attributed the rise to ineffective policing and an out-of-control gang culture.[43]

also, your source also says (in addition to the other stuff):

The Metropolitan Police said its official figures showed a 20% drop in armed robberies of commercial premises between April and July this year, compared with the same period last year.

in any case, the statisic from Australia stills stands, and I think it's a pretty good statistic!

Between 1991 and 2001, the number of firearm-related deaths in Australia declined 47%.[23]