Support for Gun Control in US at its Lowest Level in More than 50 Years

[Centurion1]

The US did have an armed revolution once, it was called the Civil War. How did that turn out?

ummmmmmm, no that was not a revolution.....

[CrossLOPER]

Also, you guys who are saying the military is too strong for the civilians so abandon your gun rights, who do you think the military is comprised of?

You think that the military cannot be turned against "domestic insurgents"?

[Major Robert Dump]

What a stupid conversation this thread had degraded to


People's support of gun ownership is going to increase in uncertain financial times for a whole host of reasons. In case some of you have been sleeping, the US Government is an abject failure that has failed to stave off even the most basic of problems they were warned about 20, 30, 40 years ago. Considering human nature, beuaracracy, entitlement attitudes of the have-nots and the big picture as a whole, anyone who trusts in the American government to protect them 100% from crime is living on another planet.

[Tellos Athenaios]

@Major: it doesn't help that the USA clings on to a “stupid” constitution, or rather a particularly “stupid” amendment. As has been pointed out before, that amendment and its sentiments are on practical considerations alone completely irrelevant, outmoded and outdated in the modern world -- just like required longbow practice.

You are of course quite right that nobody is seriously expecting people lined up at the walls any day now. Equally, though, the real problem which you highlight might reduce to a failure to keep various services going such as infrastructure and the root cause for that is not necessarily the politicians alone.

[Ironside]

Ahaha, gun threads bring out the worst in Europeans without fail.

For a recent comparising of gun attitude. Gas station in neghtbour town got robbed by gun armed robbers. A costumer and two others came to the conclusion that the robbers weren't having serious guns (shot no warning shot), went driving (unarmed) after the muggers and catched them. The guns was shown to be soft air guns.
What are the odds of this making sense in the US?

There was one before that.

Victory or death vs victory or too much vasted resources. Somehow I think civil wars have slightly higher motivation involved, compared to colonial independence. Not counting how much different the equipment has changed.

Also, you guys who are saying the military is too strong for the civilians so abandon your gun rights, who do you think the military is comprised of?

Hopefully people that is not intending to make a military coup or shoot at civilians? That's were the ideological battle to create or prevent as successful armed rebellion takes place.

People's support of gun ownership is going to increase in uncertain financial times for a whole host of reasons. In case some of you have been sleeping, the US Government is an abject failure that has failed to stave off even the most basic of problems they were warned about 20, 30, 40 years ago. Considering human nature, beuaracracy, entitlement attitudes of the have-nots and the big picture as a whole, anyone who trusts in the American government to protect them 100% from crime is living on another planet.

Reality vs ideas. Who will win?

You do know that the crime rate is much lower today than 20 years ago? And lower than 30 years ago. THE GOVERMENT SUCKS AND CAN'T DO ITS JOB, SO WE NEED THE GUNS TO PROTECT OURSELF.

[a completely inoffensive name]

ummmmmmm, no that was not a revolution.....

STATES RIGHTS STATES RIGHTS STATES RIGHTS. PROTECT OUR FREEDOM FROM THE YANKIES

There was one before that.

You mean the one we pretty much lost if it was wasn't for the French coming to help us?

[Noncommunist]

At least in the US, I can't see any sort of coup actually succeeding. After all, with hundreds of years of democratic tradition and plenty of training not to kill civilians, I can't see the military firing at US citizens beyond just a few bad apples. Even in Syria, Yemen, and Libya, army units have defected to avoid shooting their own citizens. And the US trained Egyptian and Tunisian militaries refused to even stop the overthrow of their government.

[Major Robert Dump]

You do know that the crime rate is much lower today than 20 years ago? And lower than 30 years ago. THE GOVERMENT SUCKS AND CAN'T DO ITS JOB, SO WE NEED THE GUNS TO PROTECT OURSELF.

And what makes you think the "GOVERNMENT" is responsible for making the crime rate go down? Are you really that naieve? There are hundreds of stimuli that affect crime trends

I might also point out that as populations age and mature and progress, certain things become less illegal over time, which affects recording crime. 20 years ago, stealing anything with a value over $50 was considered GRAND LARCENY a felony in most US States. Now it's anywhere from $500 to $1000 to qualify for that....... Based on a change of values, there are fewer felonious thefts today than 20 years ago.

[Ironside]

And what makes you think the "GOVERNMENT" is responsible for making the crime rate go down? Are you really that naieve? There are hundreds of stimuli that affect crime trends

I might also point out that as populations age and mature and progress, certain things become less illegal over time, which affects recording crime. 20 years ago, stealing anything with a value over $50 was considered GRAND LARCENY a felony in most US States. Now it's anywhere from $500 to $1000 to qualify for that....... Based on a change of values, there are fewer felonious thefts today than 20 years ago.

The government is a factor, but I can agree on that's it's probably not the main driver in this case.

Main thing was that there's no (or very poor) correlation between "guns are needed, since the goverment fails to protect", gun ownership and crime.

Theft is completely irrelevant to gun ownership. Muggery and robbery is in some form, although I'm not sure how it's treated (theft or assult) in the data.

[Major Robert Dump]

Of course government is one of many factors in lower crime, but I might also point out that gun ownership is also a factor. That being said, there is plenty to correlate that people want guns because their government fails to protect. I am not making a statement of right or wrong, I am telling you how people feel. One thing that trips me up about the gun-control crowd from countires that have effectively had strict gun controls for decades, is that their arguments fail to consider the pure saturation of guns in this nation. We can argue and go round and round endlessly about what came first the chicken or the egg, but the simple fact is that there are plenty of bad people in this country who have guns, gun control would not convonce them to turn in their guns as they are crooks already, and citizens lacking guns will cause a field day for the criminals with guns. You, Ironside, may think it worthwhile to partake in such a social experiment for the greater, long term good, and that is probably where we will never see eye to eye.

Washington DC is one of the worst places in the nation. Chicagos gun ban has been fail. Meanwhile, states that enact conceal-carry laws see an almost immediate drop in victim-type crimes, while counties in adjacent states that dont have conceal-carry have an immediate increase in victim-crime, because the professional criminals are migrating targets.

Guns are not the solution, and neither is banning them wholesale.

[PanzerJaeger]

You mean the one we pretty much lost if it was wasn't for the French coming to help us?

Yes, state sponsorship is key to the success of an insurgency.

[Shaka_Khan]

I don't see why gun control automatically means a dictatorship. There are plenty of democratic countries out there that have gun control and no gun related crime.

[PanzerJaeger]

I don't see why gun control automatically means a dictatorship.

Who said it does?

[Centurion1]

I don't see why gun control automatically means a dictatorship. There are plenty of democratic countries out there that have gun control and no gun related crime.

name one country with no gun crimes or murder.

[Beskar]

name one country with no gun crimes or murder.

According to Wikipedia -

0.1 Gun Death per 100,000 population in the United Kingdom
3.5 Gun Death per 100,000 population in the United States

That's a pretty big difference...

[Centurion1]

name one country with no gun crimes or murder.

yeah and britains violent crime rate is 2.5 times higher than the US' and the murder rate has been climbing since 1997 when the total handgun ban was enacted. American murder rates are the lowest in 20 years. i would hope a country which bans guns would have lower gun murders what a completely worthless statistic and point to demonstrate.

[Beskar]

Yet the argument present in the thread from some posters was that: "Gun control doesn't work". Since there is a massive statistical difference, I would argue it does.

Not a worthless statistic or point to demonstrate.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

yeah and britains violent crime rate is 2.5 times higher than the US' and the murder rate has been climbing since 1997 when the total handgun ban was enacted. American murder rates are the lowest in 20 years. i would hope a country which bans guns would have lower gun murders what a completely worthless statistic and point to demonstrate.

Britain has huge ghettoised immigrant populations and an underclass where no one has worked in three generations and most new parents are in their mid to late teens. We banned guns over here because of our social problems, banning guns did not create said problems or the violence that results from them.

[Major Robert Dump]

But the question for the last two posters is were guns saturated in that country inside and out? You cannot issue blanket statements on hgow gun control works without also addressing the amount of guns in the country when the ban is enacted.

Meanwhile, a large proportion of violent crime in the US involves a gun. If guns were banned, a large proportion of violent crime would still involve guns. How long would it take for that number to decrease significantly without making potential victims sitting ducks? Furthermore, prohibition of an item creates a blackmarket, and we can't even secure our borders. Crooks would still get guns.

[PanzerJaeger]

Yet the argument present in the thread from some posters was that: "Gun control doesn't work". Since there is a massive statistical difference, I would argue it does.

Not a worthless statistic or point to demonstrate.

And yet, the logic behind it is based on fallacy.

[Shaka_Khan]

name one country with no gun crimes or murder.

There are plenty in Europe and Asia that have no gun crimes. Note that guns make it easier to hurt a person. Having no guns would make that crime more unlikely to happen. I'll name a few countries of a lot of countries that have no gun crime: UK, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, etc. I for one know for certain that the civilians in UK, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Cambodia don't own guns and there is no gun crime there. I also know for certain that the murder rate in those countries are much much lower than the US.

[Centurion1]

i love people who cannot grasp the concept of zero gun crime and LESS gun crime......

[Shaka_Khan]

Who said it does?

Someone said that we have the right to bear arms because the first US government wanted the civilians to be able to rebel in case the government becomes bad.

yeah and britains violent crime rate is 2.5 times higher than the US' and the murder rate has been climbing since 1997 when the total handgun ban was enacted. American murder rates are the lowest in 20 years. i would hope a country which bans guns would have lower gun murders what a completely worthless statistic and point to demonstrate.

name one country with no gun crimes or murder.

i love people who cannot grasp the concept of zero gun crime and LESS gun crime......

I doubt you traveled much.

I have lived in NYC. My dad was robbed at gunpoint in the elevator of the building that we lived in. We moved out of NYC soon after our room got buglarized a few weeks later. We moved to a safer neighborhood in New Jersey. I watched news of at least one gun related crime in NYC each day. A lot of it was gang related and you would've noticed this if you were around in NYC or LA at that time. This was long before Gulliani became mayor of NYC and long before gun control in NYC. Even when the crime rate went down during the late 90s and the early 00s, I know of a person in San Francisco who experienced a gun related crime at that time. Imagine how much more worse it was before gun control in the major cities. Before gun control, gun related crime was happening more often in NYC at least from what I saw. The thing is that this really isn't gun control. It's hard to stop the flow of every single gun in a country that has plenty of it. The results of gun control is very different with a country like the UK. The UK has much much less gun problems than the US does. It does have crime. Now imagine if criminals owned guns in the UK. It would get a lot worse because guns make it easy for anyone to hurt someone.

What's the point of owning a gun in the US? Are you going to carry it around everywhere you go? A lot of the gun related crimes in the US happened in areas where a normal person wouldn't or wasn't allowed to carry a gun. Would you carry a gun in school or in a summer camp in the USA? No because you'd probably have the cops come over and aim at you pretty soon. The fact is that even the US of A isn't a guns-for-everywhere-for-an-innocent-civilian country. There are a lot of places in the US where you'd rather not carry a gun, but crime can still happen there. The right to bear arms hasn't protected a lot of American citizens because most Americans wouldn't own a gun. It just made it easier for a criminal to own a gun. In countries like South Korea, Japan, Singapore, etc., it's close to impossible for a criminal to own a gun. I'd really say 100% impossible because I know from what a lot of people from there told me and I have traveled to those countries for a long time. I haven't heard of a gun related crime in those countries for over a decade. Believe me, it's possible not to have a gun related crime for that long. Did you know that Cambodia banned guns? Cambodian civilians were urged to give their guns away to the government. Crime went down significantly over there. I traveled there to Angkor Wat by scooter and I felt much safer there than when I did in LA, NYC and San Francisco. The only thing I was concerned about were the mines that probably weren't found yet, but even that wasn't much of a big concern because the city areas and the tourist areas of Cambodia are safe from mines now.

Try walking the streets of Detroit or Washington D.C. I don't mean cruising around the neighborhood, making a few stops at the safer regions and return back home quickly. Then try walking the streets of Singapore, Tokyo or Seoul. You'll notice a huge difference.

[Major Robert Dump]

The previous post shows a lot about people's un-informed attitude, particularly the last paragraph.

"whats the point? are you carrying it everywhere?" Yes, I carry a gun everywhere I go. It does me no good leaving it in a closet. Yes, there are places we are not allowed to carry guns, like federal property and schools, and no, the "majority" of gun crimes in the US do not happen in places where you cannot carry a gun. Bot sities you mentioned, DC and Detroit, had gun bans. Oklahoma City does not, and the differences in the crime rate is staggering

[Shaka_Khan]

Yes, I carry a gun everywhere I go. Yes, there are places we are not allowed to carry guns, like federal property and schools, and no, the "majority" of gun crimes in the US do not happen in places where you cannot carry a gun.

I was saying that most Americans wouldn't own a gun. It's these whom the criminals would pick on. I wasn't talking only about you.

Bot sities you mentioned, DC and Detroit, had gun bans. Oklahoma City does not, and the differences in the crime rate is staggering

Then explain to me why cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, etc. have very low crime? These are huge cities. So I don't think the right to bear arms have to be a factor to decrease crime.

If you read my earlier post thoroughly, you'd see that I said that it's hard to stop the flow of guns getting into the US cities because there's a lot of them in the US already. That's why we still see gun related crime in these cities. The entire country needs to ban guns, which I admit would be hard to do in a country as large as the US is and which already has guns. I added that there's a big difference in NYC before and after the gun ban over there. NYC is much safer than it was when I was a kid. NYC is much larger in size and population than Oklahoma City so I don't think Oklahoma City is a good comparison. I'm sure you'd think differently if you traveled and experienced other places more.

Tbh, I find it sad that you need to carry a gun to feel safe. I want you to experience the feeling of being safe enough not to carry a gun everywhere you go. I like how I can trust any stranger even when that stranger knows that I don't have a gun. There are many places out there where you could experience this even in many parts of the US. I have experienced many of these places and I'm experiencing one right now. Surprise surprise, I never carried a gun everywhere I went even in the dangerous areas of certain US cites.

[Centurion1]

Someone said that we have the right to bear arms because the first US government wanted the civilians to be able to rebel in case the government becomes bad.




I doubt you traveled much.

I have lived in NYC. My dad was robbed at gunpoint in the elevator of the building that we lived in. We moved out of NYC soon after our room got buglarized a few weeks later. We moved to a safer neighborhood in New Jersey. I watched news of at least one gun related crime in NYC each day. A lot of it was gang related and you would've noticed this if you were around in NYC or LA at that time. This was long before Gulliani became mayor of NYC and long before gun control in NYC. Even when the crime rate went down during the late 90s and the early 00s, I know of a person in San Francisco who experienced a gun related crime at that time. Imagine how much more worse it was before gun control in the major cities. Before gun control, gun related crime was happening more often in NYC at least from what I saw. The thing is that this really isn't gun control. It's hard to stop the flow of every single gun in a country that has plenty of it. The results of gun control is very different with a country like the UK. The UK has much much less gun problems than the US does. It does have crime. Now imagine if criminals owned guns in the UK. It would get a lot worse because guns make it easy for anyone to hurt someone.

What's the point of owning a gun in the US? Are you going to carry it around everywhere you go? A lot of the gun related crimes in the US happened in areas where a normal person wouldn't or wasn't allowed to carry a gun. Would you carry a gun in school or in a summer camp in the USA? No because you'd probably have the cops come over and aim at you pretty soon. The fact is that even the US of A isn't a guns-for-everywhere-for-an-innocent-civilian country. There are a lot of places in the US where you'd rather not carry a gun, but crime can still happen there. The right to bear arms hasn't protected a lot of American citizens because most Americans wouldn't own a gun. It just made it easier for a criminal to own a gun. In countries like South Korea, Japan, Singapore, etc., it's close to impossible for a criminal to own a gun. I'd really say 100% impossible because I know from what a lot of people from there told me and I have traveled to those countries for a long time. I haven't heard of a gun related crime in those countries for over a decade. Believe me, it's possible not to have a gun related crime for that long. Did you know that Cambodia banned guns? Cambodian civilians were urged to give their guns away to the government. Crime went down significantly over there. I traveled there to Angkor Wat by scooter and I felt much safer there than when I did in LA, NYC and San Francisco. The only thing I was concerned about were the mines that probably weren't found yet, but even that wasn't much of a big concern because the city areas and the tourist areas of Cambodia are safe from mines now.

Try walking the streets of Detroit or Washington D.C. I don't mean cruising around the neighborhood, making a few stops at the safer regions and return back home quickly. Then try walking the streets of Singapore, Tokyo or Seoul. You'll notice a huge difference.

Don't assume things about people you have no idea about. I live in NYC for one, in the Bronx which im almost certain was likely worse than where you lived. I have lived in 5 different states throughout the US. I have been to Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo (doesnt count was at the airport). Seoul's safety is more a product of the south korean culture than anything else, tokyo has some of the worst organized crime in the world and singapore is one of the strictest countries on earth. Oh and I spent quite a few of my teenage years 30 minutes away from DC.

also do you realize how much easier it is to control guns in places like japan, singapore, and the uk.......... simply because of geography alone.

[PanzerJaeger]

Someone said that we have the right to bear arms because the first US government wanted the civilians to be able to rebel in case the government becomes bad.

Yes, but who said 'gun control automatically means dictatorship'? No one did, apart from the straw man you seem to be arguing against.

By the way, as I alluded to earlier, using comparative circumstances of different countries as a basis for policy positions (in this case crime rates and gun control) involves a number of fallacies; so many, in fact, as to render such arguments virtually worthless. Heavy reliance on anecdote is even worse. What you need to provide are statistics from the same test group both before and after a gun ban has been implemented. Those stats still ignore a lot of headwind-type trends and other potentially misleading information, but are at least somewhat more demonstrative.

Here are some examples of the kind of information that, while not perfect, is a bit more useful.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Shaka_Khan]

I live in NYC for one, in the Bronx which im almost certain was likely worse than where you lived.

You're the one who's making an assumption.

I have lived in 5 different states throughout the US. I have been to Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo (doesnt count was at the airport). Seoul's safety is more a product of the south korean culture than anything else, tokyo has some of the worst organized crime in the world and singapore is one of the strictest countries on earth. Oh and I spent quite a few of my teenage years 30 minutes away from DC.

If you lived in those countries then why did you posted these earlier?

name one country with no gun crimes or murder.

yeah and britains violent crime rate is 2.5 times higher than the US' and the murder rate has been climbing since 1997 when the total handgun ban was enacted. American murder rates are the lowest in 20 years. i would hope a country which bans guns would have lower gun murders what a completely worthless statistic and point to demonstrate.

This sounds like someone who never left your neighborhood. I'll repeat what I said to MRD: I find it sad that you need to carry a gun to feel safe. I want you to experience the feeling of being safe enough not to carry a gun everywhere you go. I like how I can trust any stranger even when that stranger knows that I don't have a gun. There are many places out there where you could experience this even in many parts of the US. I have experienced many of these places and I'm experiencing one right now. Surprise surprise, I never carried a gun everywhere I went even in the dangerous areas of certain US cites.

also do you realize how much easier it is to control guns in places like japan, singapore, and the uk.......... simply because of geography alone.

I did mention that it would be hard to ban guns in the US because of geography and the US is already saturated with guns. But I believe it's possible. There are countries like Cambodia that banned guns when a lot of the Cambodians owned these. A lot of the civilians in China (which is larger and more populous than the States) don't own guns. I felt pretty safe there.

Yes, there are places we are not allowed to carry guns, like federal property and schools, and no, the "majority" of gun crimes in the US do not happen in places where you cannot carry a gun.

I mentioned schools because I saw some gun crime in US schools on the news. Even before Columbine, some schools had metal detectors at the entrance to ban guns because gun crimes were happening. Gun crime in a school is unheard of in places like the UK, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, etc.
I mentioned that a normal summer camp in the US bans guns because someone in this forum mentioned the need for everyone to own guns after that tragedy in Norway happened. I also saw someone claim that this wouldn't happen in the US because of the right to bear arms.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Yes, but who said 'gun control automatically means dictatorship'? No one did, apart from the straw man you seem to be arguing against.

By the way, as I alluded to earlier, using comparative circumstances of different countries as a basis for policy positions (in this case crime rates and gun control) involves a number of fallacies; so many, in fact, as to render such arguments virtually worthless. Heavy reliance on anecdote is even worse. What you need to provide are statistics from the same test group both before and after a gun ban has been implemented. Those stats still ignore a lot of headwind-type trends and other potentially misleading information, but are at least somewhat more demonstrative.

Here are some examples of the kind of information that, while not perfect, is a bit more useful.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Judging from those graphs, banning guns had no ill effect on the level of crime.

[Shaka_Khan]

Yes, but who said 'gun control automatically means dictatorship'? No one did, apart from the straw man you seem to be arguing against.

Someone mentioned the Constitution having the right to bear arms so that the people can rebel against a dictatorship.

By the way, as I alluded to earlier, using comparative circumstances of different countries as a basis for policy positions (in this case crime rates and gun control) involves a number of fallacies; so many, in fact, as to render such arguments virtually worthless. Heavy reliance on anecdote is even worse. What you need to provide are statistics from the same test group both before and after a gun ban has been implemented. Those stats still ignore a lot of headwind-type trends and other potentially misleading information, but are at least somewhat more demonstrative.

Here are some examples of the kind of information that, while not perfect, is a bit more useful.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You're only showing the US and the UK. The US still has guns outside those cities, which makes it difficult to ban guns in those cities. And the UK still has a lot less gun crime than in the US.

I'm saying what I experienced in the US and my different experience in other countries that clearly has zero gun worries.

I'm not picking a side just to annoy you. I was angry that a person I knew when I was a kid was shot. I was angry when I saw a girl run into the lobby and cry that her boyfriend was shot. (Both of these happened many years ago). It's ridiculous and a humiliation that innocent people go through this. In both of these cases, the crime wouldn't have happened if guns were harder for the criminals to obtain. Having been to safer areas, I don't think it's normal if there is a situation that makes the general population need to own guns. That situation just shows how dangerous a country is because of guns.