Gun laws and control

[Charger]

Well you don't need guns to commit murder. In fact worldwide more murders are commited by other means than guns. Saying that taking guns away from law abiding citizens would reduce murders is ludicrous to say the least.

That being said I do agree that you shouldn't be able to just walk into a store and buy a gun...there should be some oversight, which a lot of states in the US do not have.

But there also are so many illegal guns out there it really doesn't matter a whole lot how much restrictions one would put on them...the only thing that would follow out of that is that law abiding citizens would not be able to get guns and bad guys would.

I've said this before GUNS are not the problem, never have been and never will be...people are the problem....and those people that are the problem they will find other ways to kill, be it a knife, an axe, a bomb, a truck or a plane...

[Sabbabbath]

Well you don't need guns to commit murder. In fact worldwide more murders are commited by other means than guns. Saying that taking guns away from law abiding citizens would reduce murders is ludicrous to say the least.

Nope it is not, given that a significant portion of murders worldwide IS commited with guns. You used the term "reduce" yourself, so you must be aware we are talking about that, rather than getting rid of murders altogether.

Sure, you can use a stone, a kitchen knife, or a herb (as poison) to kill somebody. But stones, knifes or herbs are tools needed in daily life, even in peaceful conditions, so it makes no sense to take them away from people. Guns aren't really needed, at least not by most people, under peaceful conditions. Plus, things that are potential tools, while obviously not being people, are usually (not in a literal sense of course) "telling" us something: most normal people know what a tool is for, so whenever they see it, they tend to be aware of what it can be used for. Accordingly, tools "suggest" a certain range of activities: a kitchen knife suggests to cut an apple or bread or... maybe... kill somebody. What does a gun "suggest"? I think the range of activities it suggests is pretty limited - which is why it is relatively unproblematic to restrict access to guns -, and a significant portion of the activities it suggests are dangerous and hurtful - which is why it is good to restrict access to guns.

That being said I do agree that you shouldn't be able to just walk into a store and buy a gun...there should be some oversight, which a lot of states in the US do not have.

And that's exactly what has been suggested here.

But there also are so many illegal guns out there it really doesn't matter a whole lot how much restrictions one would put on them...the only thing that would follow out of that is that law abiding citizens would not be able to get guns and bad guys would.

Again, statistics show that this is not true. Even though there ARE a lot of illegal guns out there, countries who have restrictions on gun ownership do have smaller murder rates.

I've said this before GUNS are not the problem, never have been and never will be...people are the problem....and those people that are the problem they will find other ways to kill, be it a knife, an axe, a bomb, a truck or a plane...

I fully agree with your point that people are the main problem. But people (and even one and the same person) can also be very different, depending on their environment and living conditions: have they been met with empathy when they were children, does their social context promote violence or nonviolence, how are they treated by their social environment (both in terms of access to material resources and in terms of social recognition and acknowledgement), etc. Human beings have negative and positive potentials, and it depends on their (closer and wider) environment which ones they actualise. There have been murders throughout known human history. But the amount (numbers, rates) has always vastly varied depending on time, country, place, situation, social class, and a Billion other factors. The evidence shows that access to guns is one significant (though by no means the only) factor that plays a role. And we have already heard several suggestions here what other measures should be taken to reduce murder rates.

[Charger]

Nope it is not, given that a significant portion of murders worldwide IS commited with guns. You used the term "reduce" yourself, so you must be aware we are talking about that, rather than getting rid of murders altogether.

I think you missed my point, I was talking about LAW ABIDING citizens...if you commit a murder you are hardly a law abiding citizen anymore now are you?

Again, statistics show that this is not true. Even though there ARE a lot of illegal guns out there, countries who have restrictions on gun ownership do have smaller murder rates.

Well there more to it than that though. It has more to do with over all crime rates than guns. Countries like The US and Brazil for example have a huge crime rate of non gun related crimes as well. Surely the outlaw attitude and existence of gangs and such also play a huuuuge role. And it is those people who would still have guns even if no one else would.


Good law abiding citizens should have the right to own guns period...that's my view as a gun owner in a country that has extremely strict gun laws.

[Sicko FanAtic]

Everybody is a law abiding citizen until they break the law.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

[Charger]

Everybody is a law abiding citizen until they break the law.

Truer words are rarely spoken.

[Axefiend]

Everybody is a law abiding citizen until they break the law.

...Or the laws are changed.

[Zzzptm]

Everybody is a law abiding citizen until they break the law.

...Or the laws are changed.

If an evil doer is poor, he will do illegal things.

If an evil doer is rich, he will pay legislators to make it so he only does legal things.

[Billy Underdog]

If an evil doer is poor, he will do illegal things.

If an evil doer is rich, he will pay legislators to make it so he only does legal things.

If a poor man does something illegal, he's probably in need.
If a rich man does something illegal, he's evil.

[Typhon]

Honestly, Typh, do you have ANY interest in reducing violent crime at all? And if yes, what's your suggestion? All you have been contributing to this thread is the repeated claim that the number of guns is not the problem. You have totally ignored my post where I pointed out that the number is NOT what most people in this threat are talking about and that, instead, we are talking about measures that would restrict the ACCESS to guns. People here have already presented numerous pieces of evidence for the claim that that would indeed help to reduce the number of murders. Don't you care? I don't understand that. I thought we were having a constructive discussion here.

Relax, lady.  People can talk about different details within the same thread.  Posts #1 and #2 were not talking about access, but elimination, and claiming incorrect statistics.  My comments grew from there.

Charger is correct on all points (post #45).  In fact, guns today are in the same situation as nuclear weapons.  Sure, it would be great if no country had any.  But if even 1 does, then it is better that another one does too, to make sure the first country does not use them.  An awful lot of shootings take place in 'gun free' zones. 

[Sabbabbath]

Honestly, Typh, do you have ANY interest in reducing violent crime at all? And if yes, what's your suggestion? All you have been contributing to this thread is the repeated claim that the number of guns is not the problem. You have totally ignored my post where I pointed out that the number is NOT what most people in this threat are talking about and that, instead, we are talking about measures that would restrict the ACCESS to guns. People here have already presented numerous pieces of evidence for the claim that that would indeed help to reduce the number of murders. Don't you care? I don't understand that. I thought we were having a constructive discussion here.

Relax, lady.  People can talk about different details within the same thread.  Posts #1 and #2 were not talking about access, but elimination, and claiming incorrect statistics.  My comments grew from there.

Charger is correct on all points (post #45).

Right, post #1 seems to suggest removing all guns from private ownership. So I see how you can read that as "reducing the number of guns to 0". Nevertheless, I still think it is misleading that you keep talking as if the main argument in this thread was that reducing the number of guns would lead to lower murder rates. We are already on page 4 of this thread, and it has been made very clear that there is a strong statistical connection betweeen ACCESS to guns and murder rates. I have pointed out above that Charger's argument (in many murders there are no guns involved) doesn't contradict this, because we were talking about REDUCING murder rates, not eliminating them.

I think you're wrong about post #2 - there was a misunderstanding about that post, as several people thought it referred to absolute numbers, but it was clarified in subsequent posts that post #2 was NOT talking about absolute numbers, but about rates, and the statistics were correct (if I haven't missed anything - please point me to it if I did). Additional statistical numbers were brought up in subsequent posts.

Of course we can talk about different aspects of a topic. I just found it misleading that you keep talking numbers, while this thread is already (pretty much since post #2) at a totally different point)

If you agree with Charger, you also agree with this point he made?
"That being said I do agree that you shouldn't be able to just walk into a store and buy a gun...there should be some oversight, which a lot of states in the US do not have."

In fact, guns today are in the same situation as nuclear weapons.  Sure, it would be great if no country had any.  But if even 1 does, then it is better that another one does too, to make sure the first country does not use them.  An awful lot of shootings take place in 'gun free' zones.

At most, your deterrence theory works as long (for nuclear weapons) as all people and institutions who have the power to fire them are rational actors - in the sense that they would not value the elimination of their enemies higher than their own (or their country's) survival. Not only is it very doubtful that all current leaders of countries with nuclear weapons meet that condition ATM; even more importantly, how can you guarantee that the condition will always be met, worldwide, in the future? Not to mention the huge waste of natural resources, work and space given that, as long as countries adhere to the deterrence theory, it is pretty much "rational" for every country to increase armament.

For guns, I fail to see how the deterrence theory makes any sense at all. You think that someone who wants to commit a murder will not do it if the other person is armed? It seems more plausible to assume they will just try to surprise them or otherwise make sure they cannot defend yourselves. Even if you were right, it would imply that EVERYBODY (except maybe known criminals) should be armed. Is that your suggestion to reduce murder rates? Then you should immediately take action and talk to your government, because something would need to be done: currently, only a minority of adults in the US own firearms, and about half of the available firearms are owned by only 3% of US adults.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/19/us-gun-ownership-survey
https://www.statista.com/statistics/249740/percentage-of-households-in-the-united-states-owning-a-firearm/

Anyway, the deterrence theory does not seem to fit with the available evidence at all. Again, statistics show that murder rates are much LOWER in countries where access to guns is MORE RESTRICTED, not less restricted. This does NOT mean, by the way, that all criminals have weapons while all non-criminals haven't (otherwise the statistal results would look very different from what they do). Instead, typically it means that you need a license to have a fiream:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_license
E.g. in Germany you will usually NOT get the license if you have been criminally convicted within a certain period of time, and some other things are checked as well. Yes, we all know that "pro" criminals know how to get a gun anyway. A significant portion of murders, however, is NOT commited by pros. Again, we are talking reducing murder rates, not eliminating them.

As others have mentioned above, Australia had a pretty similar situation as the US for a long time, until 1996, when new restrictions on gun ownership were introduced. Since then, the rates of gun-related deaths have hugely decreased in Australia. I think that's pretty telling.

Finally, even differences within the US, between states with higher vs. states with lower rates of gun ownership make the connection very clear:

In the United States, states with higher gun ownership rates have higher rates of overall and gun homicides, but not higher rates of non-gun homicides. Higher gun availability is positively associated with homicide rates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Homicides

[Sabbabbath]

Nope it is not, given that a significant portion of murders worldwide IS commited with guns. You used the term "reduce" yourself, so you must be aware we are talking about that, rather than getting rid of murders altogether.

I think you missed my point, I was talking about LAW ABIDING citizens...if you commit a murder you are hardly a law abiding citizen anymore now are you?

Well, I think that Sicko's and Axefiend's comments already made the point I would like to make: since not all (though many) murderers have been criminally convicted before, I don't think it would be right to let every "law abiding citizen" have a gun without any restrictions. Anyway, mainly your point does not seem to contradict my point, while it definitely contradicts Typh's point: Guns should NOT be available for everybody in shops.

By the way, would you prefer that gun laws in Finland woud be less restrictive than they are now? Or are fine with the way they are?

Again, statistics show that this is not true. Even though there ARE a lot of illegal guns out there, countries who have restrictions on gun ownership do have smaller murder rates.

Well there more to it than that though. It has more to do with over all crime rates than guns. Countries like The US and Brazil for example have a huge crime rate of non gun related crimes as well. Surely the outlaw attitude and existence of gangs and such also play a huuuuge role. And it is those people who would still have guns even if no one else would.

Yeah, I think everyone here agree's there's more to it. That's why social security and other measures would be needed too to improve the situation in those countries. Gun laws should be part of the package though.

Good law abiding citizens should have the right to own guns period...that's my view as a gun owner in a country that has extremely strict gun laws.

Well you don't need guns to commit murder. In fact worldwide more murders are commited by other means than guns. Saying that taking guns away from law abiding citizens would reduce murders is ludicrous to say the least.

No, not at all, because the situation in the US is extremely different from e.g. Finland. In Finland,

Between 2010 and 2015, firearms were used in 15% of all homicides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Finland#Role_in_crimes

In the USA, however,

in 2011, 67 percent of homicide victims were killed using a firearm: 66 percent of single-victim homicides and 79 percent of multiple-victim homicides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Homicides

This huge differences between the Finnish and the US rates do support that gun laws make a big difference.

That being said I do agree that you shouldn't be able to just walk into a store and buy a gun...there should be some oversight, which a lot of states in the US do not have.

That's what we're talking about.

But there also are so many illegal guns out there it really doesn't matter a whole lot how much restrictions one would put on them...the only thing that would follow out of that is that law abiding citizens would not be able to get guns and bad guys would.

Again, I thought we're talking restriction, not elimination? The only thing that would change for "law-abiding" citizens would be that their records would be checked and they would possibly have to run some tests (depending on what kind of restrictions on gun ownership would be introduced.
And why do so many people seem to assume that it would be impossible to reduce illegal gun availability as well? Yes, further measures would be needed - I just don't see why it shouldn't be tried.

[Charger]

By the way, would you prefer that gun laws in Finland woud be less restrictive than they are now? Or are fine with the way they are?

I very much wish they would be less restrictive than they are now as it is virtually impossible for me to buy a new gun now eventhough I have been a gun owner for 20 years...


EDIT:

No, not at all, because the situation in the US is extremely different from e.g. Finland. In Finland,

Between 2010 and 2015, firearms were used in 15% of all homicides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Finland#Role_in_crimes

In the USA, however,

in 2011, 67 percent of homicide victims were killed using a firearm: 66 percent of single-victim homicides and 79 percent of multiple-victim homicides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Homicides

Well this kind of just proves what I've been saying...85% of murders here are NOT committed by using a firearm. If a person really wants to kill another person they will find a way, a knife, an axe or bare hands...

Naturally in a country where there are a lot of firearms they are used to commit more murders as it is the easiest tool for it. But if we take out the murders committed by gangs and such (who would have guns no matter the laws or restrictions) I would probably say 85 to 90% of those premeditated murders would still get committed even if they would not have firearms at their disposal. In otherwords we'd probably be talking about a few dozen murders of over 17000 that could be prevented a year...positive sure, but not a very significant number.

People kill people, that's a fact of life...

[Billy Underdog]

In fact, guns today are in the same situation as nuclear weapons.  Sure, it would be great if no country had any.  But if even 1 does, then it is better that another one does too, to make sure the first country does not use them.

It's this shortsighted way of thinking that's one of the reasons there's small chances for world peace... (having borders is ofcourse the biggest one)

To make it clear, i still stand by my original post that guns are useless and should be banned and gotten rid of.
But i ofcourse understand that as long as they're here, it's better to control who gets access to them.
Once again i must remind you that i've grown up with guns and been an active gun user myself both for sports and hunting, so it's not like i'm some tree-hugging hippie who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Btw; four pages into the discussion, and still no good, wait... no argument at ALL why anyone should have access to semi-automatics...

[Vyn]

Btw; four pages into the discussion, and still no good, wait... no argument at ALL why anyone should have access to semi-automatics...

Your stance is that no one should have any type of firearm, so arguing for a subset of firearms seems moot, actually. But if you would like, let me know what you mean when you use the term "semi-automatic".

[Billy Underdog]

Btw; four pages into the discussion, and still no good, wait... no argument at ALL why anyone should have access to semi-automatics...

Your stance is that no one should have any type of firearm, so arguing for a subset of firearms seems moot, actually. But if you would like, let me know what you mean when you use the term "semi-automatic".

Basically what the term means, not having to reload, but pull the trigger for each bullet (as opposed to fully automatic where you can just hold the trigger and blast away).

Though i have that stance, i would still like to hear some arguments about it given the current happenings and discussions in your corner of the world. If anyone here actually is pro semi-automatics, ofcourse.

 While i see no need for guns at all, i see less needs for semi-automatics for "legal" use of guns, like hunting and sports. And self defence, to humour those of you who believe guns are usable for that...