Why the left is wrong on gun control

Don't tell me what to do! You can't control me.

::roll eyes::

You are still ignoring the issue. You tried to characterize the argument as being either for or against a desire to minimize the loss of life and injury. But that's not why there's an argument in the first place. The argument is over the line between due and undue burden on liberty to most optimally achieve that goal. After all, at some point the pencil is sharp and no amount of sharping will produce a more sharp pencil. All you'll get is less pencil.

 

Well, the above is bigoted and xenophobic; not even worth regarding as reasonable.

Regards.

- - - Updated - - -

I think you're being painful for no good reason.

Later.

 

And your contempt for middle American gun culture. Is that also not bigoted and xenophobic?

 

Oh there's a good reason for my responses to you, whether you find them to be painful or not notwithstanding. Especially in this discussion it's important to observe perspective. For example, you felt like I was telling you what to do when I simply pointed out that you missed the point. Meanwhile you responded by telling me what to do, the exact thing you felt shouldn't be done to you...

That's exactly what gun enthusiasts think is going on when some bloated bureaucrat shouts at them from behind armed guards that they need to endure restrictions to their own ability to use firearms.

 

Do you really believe that, or are you simply parroting what ACORN told you to post? Let's find out! Please respond to the following questions"

1. Use of Executive Orders to establish laws: Historically, Executive Orders have been used for administrative purposes to interpret a statute, or to designate how the statute is to be enforced. But there first has to be a statute to interpret or enforce. Yet, the Obama Administration has decided to use Executive Orders to enact legislation where the Legislative Branch has refused to act. This violates the Constitution by circumventing the role of Congress. So, please tell me:

a. Are you comfortable with the President passing law absent the legislative process?
b. Would you be comfortable with a Conservative President using that same power?

2. Necessity of these new laws:

a. Please, how these new laws would have prevented any of the mass shootings.
b. Wouldn't it be better to get the mental ill, that poses a danger, off the street?

Let's start with those, and work from there.

 

What are you talking about? What I'm saying is that I don't want to impede 99.9%+ of people for under 0.1%. If suicides are a problem then lets address suicides, not impede the 99.9%+ of people who are not trying to kill themselves. We know gang violence is a problem and Chicago shows us that harsh gun laws aren't the solution, so why not address the actual issue, gangs, rather than impede 99.9%+ of people who are not gang members. School shootings, yeah it's sad but also a very rare event. Can't think of one recent gun law proposal that would have stopped one. Maybe we need to look at what is causing these people to snap and shoot up schools.

My point is that there is no need to further burden the 99.9%+ of people. We already hit the point of diminishing returns a while back. Not one gun law I have seen is going to have a real impact, but they most certainly cause needless restrictions to people who are not doing anything wrong in the first place. If people actually want to lower suicides then suicides need to be addressed. If people want to lower gang violence then gangs need to be addressed. The core problems are being ignored in favor of attacks against a political enemy (gun owners) in order to secure votes. That's all gun control is, the facts show this very well.

 

What journey? We don't need more gun control, we need to actually address the issues if that's what people care about. Gun control is a political tactic used to gain votes. It's not about saving lives, it's about attacking gun owners so that the democrats can get votes from people who are ignorant of and thus scared of firearms. It's the lefts version of the right attacking abortion.

 

Except the us is not even in the top 8 of modern countries in suicide rate and numbers 1-5 all have deep restrictions on guns. Japan, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Russia, and Sweden all have greater suicide rates than the us despite virtually no gun ownership? Can you explain that?

 

How do you exactly propose we deal with gangs, hmm? Its not like cops dont already go after gangs, or are you suggesting that our government is somehow protecting gangs? Or how do you exactly propose we deal with suicides. Its not like we aren't trying to get people to not commit suicide. Are you suggesting we aren't looking at what causes people to shoot up schools? Because, from what you wrote, this seems to be the case. If we simply took guns off the public market, would it not make it slightly harder for these things to happen? Simple logic, if you allow someone thinking of suicide the chance at having at gun, it makes it very simple to commit suicide. If you allow gangs that are going to commit violent acts easy access to guns, they are going to buy them. If you are going to allow people who may or may not shoot up a school the chance at having a gun, of course they will have it. And most of these gun crimes are committed using guns that are in the possession of law abiding gun owners. Its usually their kids or something or the other that take them and use them. So, until you offer me a viable alternative plan; instead of saying what we should do, say how we should do it, I'm going to stick with the fact that the easiest way to eliminate gun violence is to not have guns at all, simple maths.

 

Comparing suicide rates between countries isn't worth doing since

Incidence of suicide tends to be under-reported due to both religious and social pressures, and possibly completely unreported in some areas. Since the data might be skewed, comparing suicide rates between nations is statistically unsound

But our suicide rate is a big part of why our "death by gun" stats are so high. Yes it counts.

 

You should stop worrying about things you can't change. Hell, prisons can't even keep drugs out, and the prisoners are constantly making weapons out of toothbrushes and razor blades, and you think you can stop people from getting guns?

lolololol!!!!

Just stop worrying about it. There are laws against killing people. That's as good as you're going to get. Live with that, or fret endlessly about something you have absolutely no say in.

 

Your telling me the modern countries of France, Belgium, Sweden, Russia, and Japan can't keep track of how many suicides they have each year? Bull crap sir. Bull crap

 

Repeat the mistakes of every country that went down this road. And this thread is about lies. This is the biggest lie.

Read this link. http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html

Yes it's about Australia, the country with tough gun laws. But not too tough, I own a rifle.

Something happened between 1996 and 1998. It can easily be seen from the graph of homicides. They started to fall,dramatically, and we are talking number of homicides, so they didn't use a knife or baseball bat. In 1996 the gun laws were introduced and buy back scheme started and the laws were fully in place by 1998.

The graph showing percentage of homicides by gun dropping dramatically proving beyond a shadow of a doubt. Was it worth the cost, I suppose if you were one of the hundreds alive today you would agree, yes it was.

And as an aside, the number of Muslims and Africans has dramatically increased in that time.

 

Anyone wanting and endeavoring to save/preserve human life (on either side), is on the proper track.

I don't expect right/wrong on this complex issue, but mainly a fair and concerted effort to improve the outcomes we can all benefit from as Americans.

 

Anti-gun rights Democrats truly don't understand how insulting their claims are about people. They attack the average person as being violent, dangerous, stupid, untrustable, suicidal, crazy and so trivial they are only one of the herd as a slanted statistical data base in which people who avoid being victimized because they had a gun don't count at all.

 

So what you're saying is that the amount of drugs on the market would be the same if we legalised them all? We've banned drugs, have we not? And yes, while some of the population may have them, their possession of it is a crime. So, they can be punished by law for having it. Are you saying that you think drug abuse will go down if we legalise it? Or it will stay the same? Quite the contrary. So essentially, you are saying that because it is hard to ban guns, and that it really won't eliminate ALL the gun violence in America, we should keep it universal? Simple maths, again, if you legalise drugs, more people with have them. If you ban them, less will have them. If you legalise guns, more people will have them. If you ban them, less will. Period. You have to admit that there will be SOMEONE who follows the law. And you are just skirting around what I just asked you. You have no solution to the problem of gun violence, and that's a fact. So you stick with the backwards ideology that we should just do nothing because we dont know what to do.

 

Clearly the easiest way to end gun violence is to have no guns. If we ban swimming pools then no one will drown in a pool either, at least not legally. Thing is that the vast, vast, vast majority of gun owners don't harm themselves or anyone else. If over 99.9%+ of people with guns can handle them safely, and they do, then clearly guns are not the issue. Rather than needlessly restrict and take from these people, real solutions to the real problems need to be found. I don't have the anwsers; if I had a way to turn around everyone who has suicidal thoughts I'd be rich. I'm not saying the answers are easy, but I am saying that restricting or banning guns isn't the answer. If you look at the facts you can see that very clearly.

 

I'm confused, where is the dramatic decrease?

Also there's this, and we haven't had any wide sweeping gun bans, well other than the "assault weapons" ban from 1994 to 2004 which did nothing (not a mystery; "assault weapons" were some of the least used in crime):




Point is I'm not seeing how gun bans and murder rates are related. I'd venture that it's something else, like if you live in a violent area you're probably going to face violence. Some parts around the US you just don't go through at night, or at all. Even if guns were banned you'd be a fool to walk around in those areas.

 

Scale is a wonderful liar. You graph shows relatively no change except fluctuations. A line of best fit would show a constant number around 6.5. Your graph is also per 100k of population, mine is the total body count. Our population has grown as has our intake of black Africans and our unemployment has increased yet the absolute total number of homicides has decreased each year until now where it is over 33% less. If we factored in population growth and noting that higher density living increases crime and violence then the decrease would actually be half and all against the odds.

I would hazard a guess and say without gun control ours would be similar to yours which shows in reality an increase in the total number of homicides.

In 1998 we had a population of 18.7 million and about 320 homicides. 2 per 100k
In 2007 ". 20 million. ". 200 ". 1 per 100k
In 2013. ". 24 million. ". 240. ". Again. 1 per 100k

So all things being equal, this shows that gun control halved the homicide rate,or about 2-3000 lives saved.

Overall this shows that the US is 5 to 6 times more violent WITH guns then Australia is WITHOUT guns.

It's actually more about the population's attitude. Australians demonstrated their desire to lower murder and it was lowerd. Americans demonstrate that decisions made hundreds of years ago are still relevant today in their opinions and NOTHING changes.

You need to change your anthems name to "The blood splattered banner".

 

I can see why you'd want to dismiss the chart, but if we cut the numbers to the same dates your charts provided we see a very clear drop and murder rates, with guns still being legal and that worthless "assault weapons" ban expired. You can't ignore the fact that murder is down without resorting to huge bans and buy outs. The difference is cultural. We have a gang culture here, and they shoot at each other all the time. Every time I hear about a shooting here or someone arrested with a gun guess who it is; gang members. If we had good enough figures that we could remove them from the murder figures, I think you'd see our murder rates would be very low.

In any case I'd say the fact that 99.9%+ of gun owners annually harm no one speaks to the fact that wide sweeping bans are unnecessary, and that the problem isn't guns. Focus should instead be moved to the causes of gun violence and suicide. Since suicide counts for over 60% of gun deaths in America, prevention would go a long way in lowering gun deaths, but more importantly, actually help people. A suicidal person without a gun is still suicidal and has plenty of other methods at their disposal. That's actually why one of our bridges has an ugly ass net on it. They've taking to jumping off a different bridge, and buildings on occasion. Didn't address the core problem, didn't save any lives.

 

I have no solution to gun violence because there is none to be had. Sorry, but there's nothing that can be done about it. Even if there was, it would just be exchanging gun violence for some other kind of violence.

Yes, there are laws against certain drugs. These laws don't seem to be curtailing drug abuse. They just make it to where people who use drugs go to prison, when they shouldn't. There are lots of non-violent drug abusers in the prison system now because of those laws, and you want to make it illegal to be a non-violent gun owner.

Besides, your usage of the term "gun violence" shows you're not interested in any solution to violence. You're just scared of guns and will put a lot of people that haven't done anything in prison because you're scared of guns.

 

The difference between a gun and a swimming pool is that, with a gun, the sole purpose is to harm or kill another. Don't give me any of those, "its just for looks" things, the sole purpose of that tool is to harm another being. What statistics are you looking at, exactly. You literally just said the best way to end gun violence was to have no guns. So I dont really see your point.

 

I think we have to divide the source of the crime

1) criminals - people who with full intent plan the crime. This would include mass shooters as they have time to plan their spree.

2) passion /mental health- people who had the gun and due to a lapse was given the opportunity to use it.

I think we can agree that no matter how strict your laws people in subset A will find a way to acquire firearms if it is part of their plan. I mean the san bernandino shooters had an apartment full of guns in the strictest state and they really only needed 2.

So that leaves us with crimes of passion and temporary insanity. Offhand this does play into the narrative that mental health is the problem. Would this make enough of an impact though to prevent some people from being able to stop people in subset A from commiting crimes?

I mean if we did away with all guns for citizens clerks would not be able to stop robberies. They would be at the mercy of their attackers. Im sure there are other situations like that too.

We need to see if more people are impacted there than people from subset B who get killed by guns. After all we need to think of the greater good.

 

The purpose of a firearm is to launch a projectile. I launch them at inanimate objects myself and I wouldn't say I'm misusing it, nor would any reasonable person. Also yes, if there were no guns there would be no gun violence. I shouldn't have to explain this but if you don't have something, it can't do anything. Another example would be that if we didn't have dogs there would no dog bites. Have you seen any unicorn attacks? No, because we don't have unicorns. If we did, you'd probably see some. Basic logic. Again, 99.9%+ of gun owners harm no one every year. Clearly guns are not the issue if the vast, vast, vast majority can handle them without harming people. If guns were forcing people to use them against their fellow man you'd have a point, but that is not the case.

 

Worth pointing out that latest "terrorist attack" in Cali (I add quotes because they seemed to be in no way affiliated with any terrorist group other than to say "hey I like your facebook!") had their weapons provided by a person who is going to court for violating federal straw purchase law. Just shows we have the laws to deal with this kind of (*)(*)(*)(*).