Explain how any of this affects the individual right to keep and bear arms. How much of ownership is due solely to irrational fear? Did you know that irrational fear has been found by one Circuit Court to be perfectly acceptable with regards to upholding the law?
The US has always had gun control. Self defence argument could perceivably be used to suggest there is too much. At the very least it could be used to reject any further legislation. However, it isnt consistent with the evidence. We therefore know that the hypothetical defence for inaction is not credible. That is not known. We merely know there are statistically significant effects. We could extrapolate and come out with an imprecise estimate. But what's the point? We're only trying to explain the failure to find significant self defence effects. We're not suggesting only those with rational preferences should be allowed guns. Did you know that isn't relevant to my argument?
Perhaps on the macro level; however, on the individual level, the use of firearms in self-defense has been found to be extremely useful. Statistical significance does not imply legal significance. Did you know that your argument has no relevance to gun control?
But with overall increased risk of victimisation Nothing in the constitution rejects evidence based policy. Given my argument refers to guns and irrationality, you dont think it's relevant? Thats a tad of a worry!
Yet sometimes the need for self-defense occurs before any adverse affects. Nothing in the Constitution empowers the government because of numbers. Whether or not a study shows an increase in risk, that does not empower the government to restrict a right where a lower risk doesn't empower a risk.
You're going for a red herring. No one has suggested gun bans. No one has suggested guns cannot have positive outcomes. We just know, overall, self defence effects are exaggerated and cannot be used against the recent calls for marginal change in gun control legislation. This is tacit admittance that I'm right. Nothing in the constitution stops an evidence based approach. Given more guns means more crime, where in the Constitution does it demand that this type of coercion can be ignored? Let's not forget the history. The US has always had gun control. Often that of course was negative (racist policy, demands for state compliance etc). However, following the 2nd Amendment, gun control tightened. That is actually evidence that rational changes are not hindered by the Constitution.
Found this amusing! It's only the pro gunners reliant on spurious conclusion, as they hide from properly conducted hypothesis testing.
Let me rephrase that: The document linked by Galileo seems to claim that unlicensed private sellers can legally sell guns to a potential buyer without verifying whether they are a prohibited individual. It does not claim that lawful gun owners are responsible for most gun crimes. My question is then, if unlicensed private sellers can legally sell guns, what's the point of the license?
Because to sell guns as a business, you have to have a license. You shouldn't need a license to sell the occasional firearm, especially to family or friends, and the Democrats blocked the last legislation that would have allowed private sellers to access NICS to screen a prospective buyer.
Overall there is no legitimate point in the license requirement that justifies its existence. It is a punitive measure, implemented by politicians who did not wish to appear as soft on crime, but could not advocate for getting tough on crime because to do such was considered a racist stance. It was implemented purely so these politicians could claim they were doing something, without offending their base voters in the process.
The pro-gun story is that Democrats know that a UBC is worthless without comprehensive registration, and Coburn's process would have worked without registration.
International comparisons aren't perfect, but comparisons within the US confirm that fewer guns and more gun control can save lives. States with higher gun ownership rates have higher gun death rates. States with stricter gun control export fewer crime guns to other states and have lower gun death rates. Individual Americans who own guns are more likely to be murdered and more likely to commit suicide. All in all, I think the research makes a pretty good case for gun control.
How so? Canada doesn't require registration of long guns, but passing a background check is necessary in order to obtain a Possession and Acquisition License.
If guns aren't registered, it's impossible to determine if a gun in the possession of a citizen was acquired by passing a background check.
What gun control leads to "fewer guns"? According to the same "research" that said Americans who own guns are more likely to be murdered than those who don't also showed that both living alone and renting led to higher chances of being murdered, and both of those risks were higher than that attributed to owning a gun. Are you suggesting that the US implement "life control" to reduce the numbers of people who rent or live alone? Does the research provide any validation for ignoring Constitutional protections to increase gun control?
Not necessarily true. People who chose to knowingly sell/buy guns illegally would face the same risks of being caught as usual. The real point of the law would be to prevent law abiding sellers from ignorantly transferring guns to criminals.
Compare the costs of registering every firearm in the US (the Canadian attempt can give you some baseline costs) with simply giving private sellers direct access to NICS to screen out illegal buyers. And/or confiscating every filed and Dremel tool.
More: I own several firearms purchased in private sales where no background check was required. Those firearms are not tied to me in any way. I live in a state where background checks for private sales are now required. If I were to sell one of these firearms, knowingly or not, to a criminal, without a background check, those could not be traced back to me. If I were to sell them to a friend, there is no way for law enforcement to prove that the friend bought them without a background check. If there were a registration requirement, the criminal purchaser could not even be charged with failure to register that firearm.
You think we DONT have an immigration problem? Our nearest neighbour is the most populous Muslim country in the world
As of 2016, immigrants from Indonesia comprised about 73k of Australia's 22 million population, right behind immigrants from Lebanon and Ireland. Way to open those doors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Australia "Australian immigration detention facilities comprise a number of different facilities throughout Australia (including one on the Australian territory of Christmas Island).[1] They are currently used to imprison people who are detained under Australia's policy of mandatory immigration detention, and previously under the now defunct Pacific Solution.[2] The facilities are currently operated by Serco, and were previously run under G4S who used to be named Global Solutions Limited (GSL), under contract from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP).[3][4][5] The facilities' existence has been condemned on human rights grounds and have even been likened to concentration camps by some critics. Trump has expressed admiration over the detention facilities, opining that the US should do the same." Australia has certainly found a solution to their immigration problem. I don't know if it's a final solution, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detention_facilities
