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I'll start the gun control debate


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To bad it doesn't say how many of those were done by illegal firearms.

I think the question is probably less important than you're suggesting. Legal firearms have the tendency (or at least the possibility) of becoming illegal firearms. I have no idea what the statics are, but I would guess that a hefty number of illegal firearms in America are either stolen or legitimate guns sold on illegally. I have no doubt that there is a black market in guns, but in a country where so many guns are imported or manufactured legally, I would imagine that few of the guns on that black market are smuggled into the country (it's an unnecessary added risk when there are so many other ways of coming by a weapon).

It is true that (constitutional considerations aside) if certain types of gun were banned in America today then the criminals would not hand in their weapons (I suspect that quite a few people with no criminal intentions would hang on to their weapons as well), but you will also have cut off one of the major sources of illegal guns in America as well.

None of which is the really important point. The question wasn't whether there is a correlation between gun control and violence with legal firearms; the question was whether there is a correlation between gun control and gun violence generally. Actually, if every single firearm related murder on Skyrazer's list was committed with an illegal firearm that would be far more significant than if they were committed with legal gun. It's fairly intuitive that gun control can affect amount of violence committed with legal guns, what it would be really useful to measure is whether gun control can affect the amount of violence caused by illegal guns. A glance at the table suggests that countries with tighter gun controls do have fewer gun related homicides. It's far from definitive (indeed, according to Stubby's article there is some question as to the affect that gun control in Australia had on gun crime), but the problems with drawing a connection like this really have nothing to do with the legality of the weapons in question.

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Why don't we work on reducing crime in general? It will probably work better than a whole sale removal of guns, which is patently and unambiguously unconstitutional.

Why don't we abandon the pretense that anyone seriously wants the "wholesale removal of guns"?

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Gun control is not the same as wholesale removal of guns. Sweden has fairly strict gun control, but we also have a large number of gun-owners owning primarily hunting weapons and sport weapons (i.e use at the range for competition-shooting). We also have virtually no gun-related crimes, there's been a few high-profile cases over the years, but compared to stabbings and beatings gun-related crimes are so few as to be effectively 0 on a year-to-year basis.

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Why don't we work on reducing crime in general? It will probably work better than a whole sale removal of guns, which is patently and unambiguously unconstitutional.

Not to mention that it is also an absurd notion entirely. We outlawed drugs, still have a problem with those. We outlawed Child Porn, there's still a boatload of that out there. We outlawed alcohol at one point in time, and turned it into one of the biggest business markets in existence by doing so. Most of the US has outlawed Prostitution, there's still LOTS of that going on. I could keep going on and on forever. The point is, outlawing guns will only serve to remove them from the hands of law abiding citizens. It will accomplish absolutely nothing as far as stopping or reducing illegal gun activity. Also, those of us who are law abiding but unwilling to comply with such an un-American and wholly unconstitutional law would find ourselves suddenly becoming criminals simply because the law moved to the wrong side of liberty.

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Why don't we abandon the pretense that anyone seriously wants the "wholesale removal of guns"?

Because gun control, it seems to me, is generally perceived as the start of slippery slope that will result in the wholesale removal of guns. *shrugs*

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Not to mention that it is also an absurd notion entirely. We outlawed drugs, still have a problem with those. We outlawed Child Porn, there's still a boatload of that out there. We outlawed alcohol at one point in time, and turned it into one of the biggest business markets in existence by doing so. Most of the US has outlawed Prostitution, there's still LOTS of that going on. I could keep going on and on forever. The point is, outlawing guns will only serve to remove them from the hands of law abiding citizens. It will accomplish absolutely nothing as far as stopping or reducing illegal gun activity. Also, those of us who are law abiding but unwilling to comply with such an un-American and wholly unconstitutional law would find ourselves suddenly becoming criminals simply because the law moved to the wrong side of liberty.

Did you just compare guns with drugs, booze, prostitution, and child pornography? :wideeyed:

By that logic, hard drugs and child porn should be treated the same way as guns currently are...

I kid. I think no one is talking about a blanket ban on all guns. Obviously, gun control advocates want stricter policies because they don't like innocent people being shot (ETA: a la JQtFM's oh-so-classy reference above), while gun rights advocates have simply read 1984 one too many times. :)

I also distrust the NRA simply because they have such a vested financial interest in keeping the status quo.

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You know, I agree with Tempra in that it would be (theoretically) more productive to focus on the causes of crime than to focus specifically on preventing gun crime in this country. I wish the the pro-gun faction would redirect and/or embrace reframing the debate in this manner as the potential benefits extend beyond the worthy goal preventing crime but I think we start running into ever more ideological and cultural battles. Most of this is basically common sense but also make for political landmines in this country. :/

The public health approach to violence prevention attempts not only to reduce the occurrence of violence, but also to limit the numbers of fatal and nonfatal injuries when such events occur. To prevent gun-related violence, indeed any type of violence, it is important to understand the dynamics of violence as well as the role of different kinds of weapons in both fatal and nonfatal injuries. Research from around the world indicates that sociostructural factors such as high unemployment rates, ethnic and religious hostilities, political instability, financial inequalities, lack of resources, and economic deprivation increase the likelihood of violence. When guns are readily available in such settings, or where legislation to curb their illegitimate use is lax or inappropriate, injuries are more likely to occur, intentional or otherwise. Individual factors can also precipitate violence, including the use of firearms. Substance and alcohol abuse, mental disorders, feelings of personal inadequacy and social isolation, and an individual's experience with violence in the home are among some of the factors that have been associated with violence.

This overview of gun control history in Amercia is pretty interesting: http://www.answers.com/topic/gun-politics The first gun laws required people to own guns and that they carry them on certain occasions and that they train with them periodically.

From the 19th century:

In 1846 with its Nunn v. State decision, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that a ban on the sale of most handguns violated the Second Amendment of the Constitution. During the nineteenth century, several states enacted special restrictions on edged weapons that were considered suitable only for criminal use (especially bowie knives and dirks). State courts often but not always upheld these laws against constitutional challenges. Usually courts interpreted the state constitution to parallel the federal Second Amendment, and ruled that both state and federal constitutions protected an individual's right to bear arms—primarily the type of arms useful for "civilized warfare," such as rifles, shotguns, muskets, handguns, and swords, but not billy clubs or bowie knives. A minority of courts went further, and extended protection to arms that were useful for personal protection, even if not useful for militia-type service.

In the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford case, U.S. Supreme Court chief justice Roger B. Taney defended his holding that free blacks could not be citizens, for if blacks were citizens, they would have the right to "the full liberty of speech in public and private upon all subjects upon which its [a state's] own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went." As with most other laws regarding free blacks, state-based restrictions on gun ownership by free blacks grew more severe in the decades leading up to the Civil War. In the early republic North Carolina had enrolled free blacks in its militia, but such a policy had become unthinkable by the 1850s.

Immediately after the Civil War several southern states enacted "black codes," which were designed to keep former slaves in de facto slavery and submission. To provide practical protection for defensive gun ownership by the freedmen, the Republican Congress passed the Freedmen's Bureau Acts (1866 and 1868) and the Civil Rights Act of 1871, and sent the Fourteenth Amendment to the states for ratification. Many southern states, however, reacted by passing gun control laws that were facially neutral, but designed to disarm only blacks. For example, Tennessee in 1871 banned all handguns except the "Army and Navy" models. Former confederate soldiers already owned their high-quality service pistols. Freedmen were precluded from obtaining the inexpensive pistols that were beginning to proliferate in the American market. Other southern states enacted licensing and registration laws. Class violence was the main motive for gun control in the North. For example, an 1879 Illinois law forbade mass armed parades, a measure targeted at fraternal labor organizations. In Presser v. Illinois (1886), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such parade bans did not violate the Second Amendment.

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So let's talk about ways of reducing overall crime rates. Early childhood education in particular, but education more broadly is clearly the best investment for this.

Pulling money from prison systems (which are not an effective way of deterring people from committing crimes) and putting it into early childhood education as well as proper nutrition for children would make an enormous difference. Pay teachers' aides a real salary, pay daycare providers a real salary, and pay teachers a competitive wage so that teaching becomes something desirable in society rather than a fallback job or something for only the truly dedicated, and you could see real change in the behavior of people at young ages, leading to radical differences when they grow up.

It is important to reach children particularly when they are very young, when their brains are developing, in order to help them develop properly. Just the number of words you hear as a two year old will have a profound impact on your options later in life, basically. And so something as simple as getting parents to talk to their kids more, giving them more stimulation is the sort of thing that is desperately needed. So putting money into this sort of thing would make an enormous difference. Not today, but in twenty years.

Or was this not what you were talking about? Because I certainly hope you weren't talking about 'tough on crime' type attitudes, which are completely useless, utterly cost-ineffective and have meant that the amount we're spending on prisons has quadrupled in the last thirty years.

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well, to start i will state that i am a lifelong and occasionally apologetic american. i was raised in a rural area where guns and hunting were a basis of life. one day my father will travel to valhalla and i will inherit the arsenal that he has amassed over the years. i thoroughly enjoy hunting and shooting. it really does feel very cathartic to put several rounds of well-placed ammunition in a target. last summer i had the honour and joy of teaching my 6 year old nephew how to shoot with the very same .22 single shot, bolt action remington that my father taught me to shoot twenty-five years ago.

however, as i have grown in age my feelings on guns have changed a great deal. do we ban them outright? is obama going to go door to door and take away our freedom and liberty?

that is my issue. freedom. liberty. the idea that americans have such a masturbatory coexistence with firearms boggles my fucking mind. equating having a firearm to being free is asinine. thinking one need's to be armed to take on the government is one of the most retarded notions to ever squeak through the narrow and moronic minds of my countrymen. this is not the time of the revolution when the musket you have is the same as the british army you wish to defeat. the current army has bombers, missiles, rockets, tanks, land mines, mortars, machine guns, grenades and other neat ways to wage war, instill fear and take life. no compound of assholes in montana, idaho or kentucky are going to possibly have enough ak-47s, glocks, hunting rifles, shotguns and explosive to take on the organized juggernaut that is the united states military machine. the military overthrows governments, insular fuckheads are not likely to stand a chance.

still i do not advocate removing gun ownership from the people. it is too deeply buried in the collective soul of standard america. there are only three issues that ever truly matter come election time: the gays, dead fetuses, and guns.

what i do want to see is a lot more responsibility in purchasing, owning and using firearms. it is too fucking easy to buy one. when i was 10 i had to take a five day class to have the right to carry a shotgun and hunt gamebirds. an adult with a reasonably clean record can go and get a 9mm. it does not mean they know how to use it. you have to take a class and a test to ride a motorcycle and drive a car. is it unreasonable to take a class and test to own a gun? is that infringing upon the rights set by god and the constitution?

i want mandatory trigger lock devices and security measures on guns in homes with children. if your idiot son is so disenfranchised that he walks into school and murders half his class i want responsibility by the parents. if same idiot son shoplifts parent's are held responsible. too rarely are parents held accountable for the murderous actions of their children.

also there needs to be much much sterner and unyielding punishments for gun crimes. if you so much as threaten someone with a gun i want the idiot to serve a life sentence. is it draconian? yes, it is. but, idiots need to feel the overwhelming and powerful results of their actions.

the firearm has made it too easy to kill and maim. i miss the days when you had to really have to be a bad and hard motherfucker to club, beat, stab or choke someone to death. technology has brought forth a era in our culture where some little piece of shit who was picked on too much can decide to murder his school or someone who was rejected too often by the women can shoot up a gym. these are cowardly bastards. without firearms the best they could have hoped to do is sob themselves to death. guns make it too easy to do something very very stupid.

i am sure there are a lot of people who will not agree with me. even having to learn gun responsibility and being held accountable is likely too much treading on the freedoms of the gun-loving masses.

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So let's talk about ways of reducing overall crime rates. Early childhood education in particular, but education more broadly is clearly the best investment for this.

What I've read regarding early childhood ed (at least for some programs) is that the beneficial effects are temporary - children who benefit at first later regress to where they would have been without it. It's extremely difficult for an external influence to overcome the crushing, debilitating effects of poor upbringing (parenting).

Now, you can try to teach the parents to be better parents, but good luck making that stick when the parents couldn't even finish high school themselves.

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Because gun control, it seems to me, is generally perceived as the start of slippery slope that will result in the wholesale removal of guns. *shrugs*

But is this a legit worry, or fear-mongering by the NRA?

I agree with a lot of MercenaryChef's post. While I think that the US military could squash any backcountry militia group, I don't think you could convince them they couldn't make it difficult. Esp in the current atmostphere of "Obama is out to destroy the Constitution and the country I love!"

FWIW, while gun control is generally advocated by the Democrats, I'd never heard it mentioned as a pillar of the Obama White House agenda.

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But is this a legit worry, or fear-mongering by the NRA?

I think it is clearly fear-mongering. SCOTUS would never uphold such a measure as it stands. And amending the Constitution so that it could be upheld? Never happen either and who is even trying that warrants any consideration?

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So let's talk about ways of reducing overall crime rates. Early childhood education in particular, but education more broadly is clearly the best investment for this.

Pulling money from prison systems (which are not an effective way of deterring people from committing crimes) and putting it into early childhood education as well as proper nutrition for children would make an enormous difference. Pay teachers' aides a real salary, pay daycare providers a real salary, and pay teachers a competitive wage so that teaching becomes something desirable in society rather than a fallback job or something for only the truly dedicated, and you could see real change in the behavior of people at young ages, leading to radical differences when they grow up.

It is important to reach children particularly when they are very young, when their brains are developing, in order to help them develop properly. Just the number of words you hear as a two year old will have a profound impact on your options later in life, basically. And so something as simple as getting parents to talk to their kids more, giving them more stimulation is the sort of thing that is desperately needed. So putting money into this sort of thing would make an enormous difference. Not today, but in twenty years.

Or was this not what you were talking about? Because I certainly hope you weren't talking about 'tough on crime' type attitudes, which are completely useless, utterly cost-ineffective and have meant that the amount we're spending on prisons has quadrupled in the last thirty years.

Well said.

Early development is the critical time period that gets routinely ignored. Instead of wasting money on incarcerating ever increasing numbers of people the US needs to focus on healthy development. My understanding is that dollars spent on early development actually pay dividends when you look at the long term investment.

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Now, you can try to teach the parents to be better parents, but good luck making that stick when the parents couldn't even finish high school themselves.

I know, right? I don't honestly know how people without PhD degrees managed to raise kids properly. Barbarians, they are.

Some more tea and scones?

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Or was this not what you were talking about?

Who, me? Sure. I would support decriminalizing weed in an effort to raise the money for it. Try to reduce prison populations and raise tax revenues.

There's a lot of ways to come at it. Hell, health care reform.

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No disrespect intended, but to be honest it's no use for Americans to debate this issue any more. The NRA and its allies have in my view won the day. No matter how many school shootings happen or how big a majority Democrats hold in Congress, we can't pass even the most reasonable gun control legislation. So instead of being frustrated and disbelieving, I choose to care as little as possible.

Fuck the eunuchs in the NRA. They have agreed to thier castration so they can get to play with their fake dicks. I would be amazed if any of them knew just what the 2nd amendment says, and they sure as hell would never live up to the responsibility that the 2nd amendment outlines as the very reason for gun ownership.

when i was 10 i had to take a five day class to have the right to carry a shotgun and hunt gamebirds. an adult with a reasonably clean record can go and get a 9mm. it does not mean they know how to use it. you have to take a class and a test to ride a motorcycle and drive a car. is it unreasonable to take a class and test to own a gun? is that infringing upon the rights set by god and the constitution?

I am very with you on this. Demonstrate some competency, prove you can store it safely, and then you can get a license. And like a driver's license - have it with you when you are involved in that activity - else wise thats a crime too.

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