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

[Major Robert Dump]

Offering anectodotal evidence of where you have been in the US, even bad neighborhoods, and felt safe w/o a gun has no bearing on the argument at hand, though. Get back to me when you have ventured into East St Louis or the rural meth belt. I might also point out that the only time I have been the victim of a potential deadly violent crime happened to be the one time I was unarmed because the place I was coming from did not allow personal firearms. Kind of funny, when you think about it.

I agree that it's sad I need a gun to feel safe. That is not my fault. It's also not going to change anytime soon. I don't make the world, I just live in it.

[PanzerJaeger]

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

Yes, that does not equate to 'gun control means dictatorship'. The idea is not that taking away guns automatically leads to dictatorship (as your straw man would suggest), but that if at some point in the future the government does become authoritarian, the citizenry will have no means to resist.

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.

That's the point. The US and UK have historically had different violent crime rates long before gun bans came into existence, thus comparisons aren't worth much. Claims that x country has 'zero' gun worries are not evidence of the success or failure of gun control efforts. Remember, correlation does not imply causation. If you're willing to look beyond such poorly thought out comparisons and really dig into the data, you'll be surprised at how little an impact gun control efforts seem to have had on generalized crime trends of various places around the world.

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.

Anecdote is just as worthless as false comparisons. You know, I feel really safe in the US and never feel the need to carry a gun for personal protection. That and a dollar will buy me something off the dollar menu at McDonalds.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

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.

I heard a story on the radio once about a woman whose ex-husband had been in the KKK. She got introduced to everyone in the local organization. After they broke up she volunteered for the police, wearing a wire to events and gatherings and such. Eventually they got caught on and she started getting threatening phone calls "we're going to kill your dogs, we're going to kill you"...when they showed up at her house one night with crowbars or something she met them on the porch with a shotgun and they scrammed.

[ajaxfetish]

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.

Data taken from this 2002 WHO report, listing numbers for the most recent data-year available between 1990 and 2000.

Gun-related homicides

UK: 45 (1999)
Japan: 22 (1997)
South Korea: 19 (1997)
Singapore: 0 (1998)
Taiwan: no data
Cambodia: no data
Vietnam: no data
China: 3 (1996, data only for Hong Kong)

45 ≠ zero
22 ≠ zero
19 ≠ zero
3 ≠ zero

I'm not sure whether those countries with no data were excluded because there was no firearm homicide or because they chose not to report their data to the WHO. Considering there was data for Hong Kong, but not for the rest of China, I wouldn't be surprised if at least some cases were due to a lack of transparency. Also, these figures cover only homicides, not other gun crime. Singapore had 5 gun-related suicides in that year, if you include those as instances of gun crime, and I have no idea what the figures might be for armed robbery or any other form of gun crime. As Centurion pointed out, there is a difference between zero gun crime and less gun crime. Try to be accurate in the claims you make. If you want to make a case that many countries have lower gun crime rates than the U.S., you're on firm ground. If you claim that countries like Japan, South Korea, and the UK have zero gun crime, you're simply wrong.

Ajax

[Beskar]

45 ≠ zero
22 ≠ zero
19 ≠ zero
3 ≠ zero

...If you want to make a case that many countries have lower gun crime rates than the U.S., you're on firm ground. If you claim that countries like Japan, South Korea, and the UK have zero gun crime, you're simply wrong.

That is being rather pedantic though, he is evidently meaning relative to the numbers in the United States.

Using your own source:
United States of America (1998) 11802

Now let's compare it to the quoted, lets take the highest one.
UK: 45 (1999)

11802 versus 45.

Why "zero" is incorrect, he is simply using the literary device to insinuate that it is effectively 'nothing'/'zero' in comparison to the United States to make forth his point and considering the difference, I feel there should be some fair usage. It isn't as if the United States number was 68, then that would be raising eyebrows at his use of that particular literary device.

[ajaxfetish]

Well, I'm feeling rather like a pedant tonight, and I was getting frustrated by Centurion and Shaka_Khan talking past each other on this point. As I said, lower gun crime? Sure. Obscenely lower? Why not. Zero? False.

Ajax

[PanzerJaeger]

That is being rather pedantic though, he is evidently meaning relative to the numbers in the United States.

Using your own source:
United States of America (1998) 11802

Now let's compare it to the quoted, lets take the highest one.
UK: 45 (1999)

11802 versus 45.

Why "zero" is incorrect, he is simply using the literary device to insinuate that it is effectively 'nothing'/'zero' in comparison to the United States to make forth his point and considering the difference, I feel there should be some fair usage. It isn't as if the United States number was 68, then that would be raising eyebrows at his use of that particular literary device.

If one compares those numbers to population size, they might as well both be 'zero' if we're using the term figuratively. The dirty little secret that those quoting stats from other countries never mention is that the chance of getting into a violent crime in the US involving a gun may be statistically higher than in the UK or the Asian nations mentioned, but it is still incredibily small. The anecdote expressed in this thread seems to be more of a function of a fearful imagination than reality. Is anyone really deathly afraid to ride a scooter in San Francisco for fear of getting shot?

The question is: Do we want to remove a fundamental freedom many Americans cherish and enjoy to to move the number from e-5 to e-7? (And that assumes that gun control does reduce gun crime, which has not at all been established.)

[Centurion1]

its not my fault if people simply want to ignore what i say and twist it to their own devices. I said zero, when I say zero i imply a value of 0 or a value of nothing if you prefer. I reiterated it multiple times.

[a completely inoffensive name]

when I say zero I really mean 12.

[Major Robert Dump]

I like how we have 22,000 gun laws on the books yet people want to talk about how gun control works.

If we enforced current laws and closed that stupid gun show loophole it would be a done deal. IMO, the people who campaign to keep the gun show loophole open are just as bad as the liars on the anti-gun side

I'm also curious from you who think that guns vanishing is the magic solution:

If we take guns out of the picture, the murder rate per capita in the US still exceeds that of, say Japan.

[econ21]

If we take guns out of the picture, the murder rate per capita in the US still exceeds that of, say Japan.

I suspect Japan is rather a low crime country. I've heard it said that the US and the UK have quite comparable crime rates, except for the "obscenely lower" gun crime in the UK.

[Major Robert Dump]

Black males ages 16-24 also commit the majority of violent crimes in the US. We should consider a ban.

[PanzerJaeger]

Black males ages 16-24 also commit the majority of violent crimes in the US. We should consider a ban.

That does bring up a good point, though. A significant proportion of those deaths are criminal on criminal and criminal on police homicides, which should be factored out if we're discussing the relative danger to the 'average' citizen.

[Major Robert Dump]

One trick the Brady lobby used in the 80s and early 90s, before the internet was widely available and people could find federal statistics on their own, was to include people up to the age of 24 as "youths" i.e. "children" and not factor out criminal-on-criminal activity, thus coming up with stats to pull the heartstrings like " a child is shot every 10 minutes in the USA." It also included suicides.

Guns = more gun crime is a no brainer. But based on the reactions of the general public, I would say the vast majority of Americans see it as a Few ruining it for Everyone Else and they won't be baited by bogus stats. The anti-gun lobby would have people believe that in order for a gun top be an effective deterrent/use against crime, that there has to be a gunshot, a bullet and blood, when in fact a guy walking into his backyard with a shotgun and scaring away a pack of burglars does not go into any sort of database. You see these stoeis in the news all the time, yet they aren't included in the "facts." There's a reason that Appalachia has one of the lowest home invasion rates in the nation, despite being in the meth belt ..............

[Tellos Athenaios]

There's a reason that Appalachia has one of the lowest home invasion rates in the nation, despite being in the meth belt ..............

... Though you have to admit that might partially be explained by lack of inhabited buildings and richer pickings elsewhere?

[Ronin]

... Though you have to admit that might partially be explained by lack of inhabited buildings and richer pickings elsewhere?

..and a certain....let's call it proclivity not to report a possible break in to the police....not with that science project going on in the back room.

[Centurion1]

none of you are from appalachia or have ever been there.

[Major Robert Dump]

I've had some cases in Appalachia. They are harder to solve because of lack of dental records and the the DNA being the same.

Good point about the disparity in population clusters, however the home invasion distribution should stay relatively the same per capita, which it is not. It is lower.

While I get the meth lab joke, to sya that people don't call the cops because they are up to something illegal is factually incorrect. In fact, if it were correct, it would hurt the anti-gun angle because it is suggesting that the people using guns are people who are multi-faceted criminals, which enfordces the pro-gun argument that the people who obtain and use guns legally are not the ones at fualt: it's the criminals.

A lot of people don't call the police for a lot of reasons.

[Ronin]

none of you are from appalachia or have ever been there.

true..but I didn´t want to mention that because it might sound like I was bragging.

[Beskar]

Guns = more gun crime is a no brainer.

There is actually evidence that supports the notion that the presence of a gun (even an inactive hunting rifle hung upon the wall) significantly increases levels of aggression, due to it being recognised as a "danger/aggression" mental cue.

[ICantSpellDawg]

The 2nd amendment was written to allow the people to overthrow a tyrannical government - for which you need modern rifles.

Here Here

[Noncommunist]

none of you are from appalachia or have ever been there.

I'm from there. And at home, I haven't ever been a victim of a crime, nor have I come across meth. Though my dad does have a few guns and we've occasionally used them.

[ICantSpellDawg]

I want everyone who is not too insane and doesn't have a serious criminal record to be armed to the teeth at all times. I believe in this more and more as I get older, which is counter intuitive.

[a completely inoffensive name]

To be honest, part of me is actually serious about wanting guns so that a zombie outbreak is thwarted, if one ever arises. Even though I know the traditional scientific explanation of zombies is impossible.

[Shaka_Khan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdnwTR8kyk0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THqDidIr4Xs

[Nowake]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdnwTR8kyk0

I was less concerned with the shootings in the clips and more irritated by the presenter’s tone of casual, satisfied, Bible lesson speech. He was almost purring when he said:

“identified as a drifter with an extensive criminal past. But when he tried to take an officer’s life, he ensured he would have no future!”

His tone simply tosses away the whole gravitas of recording a person trying to kill another and dying in the attempt and makes it all into a sort of perverse, self-righteous “live gun porn”. Is that how these events are picked up on and disseminated in the US?



Moreover, since the bit of moral outrage above is not reason enough to warrant a post, I do have a dilemma.
Now, I should first add that I hold no clear stand for or against and I do not wish to involve myself in the thread per se.
Still, while the legalisation of weapons may not contribute to the crime rate in the sense that those weapons are actually used in criminal activities, I can’t see how they are not building up the phenomenon. When you commit the crime you may use an illegal weapon, yet you can very easily pre-train with their legal counterparts. A whole infrastructure is put in place, teaching you their potential and how to handle every calibre; instructors, shooting ranges, weapon shows allowing you to intimately understand what would suit your needs. Hell, children are in some cases tutored by their own parents, who are under the impression the kids need this sort of life-lesson. Thus when you actually wish to commit said crime, you know exactly what you’re after and how it feels to employ it; not only does it come that much easier to you to pursue that path, but it may even cross your mind solely because you are so familiar with the possibilities different types of guns open up to you. Over a few decades, the whole culture is transformed into... well, what you chaps have in the US at the moment. That’s where one of my small quandaries on the matter springs from at least.

[PanzerJaeger]

Still, while the legalisation of weapons may not contribute to the crime rate in the sense that those weapons are actually used in criminal activities, I can’t see how they are not building up the phenomenon. When you commit the crime you may use an illegal weapon, yet you can very easily pre-train with their legal counterparts. A whole infrastructure is put in place, teaching you their potential and how to handle every calibre; instructors, shooting ranges, weapon shows allowing you to intimately understand what would suit your needs. Hell, children are in some cases tutored by their own parents, who are under the impression the kids need this sort of life-lesson. Thus when you actually wish to commit said crime, you know exactly what you’re after and how it feels to employ it; not only does it come that much easier to you to pursue that path, but it may even cross your mind solely because you are so familiar with the possibilities different types of guns open up to you.

Your scenario of training with legal weapons and then obtaining illegal ones to commit a crime is not accurate. It is not the guns themselves that have a particular legal standing (apart from NFA type weapons), but the people who use them. Felons cannot be in possession of a firearm - ever. That means they cannot pass an ATF background check to buy a gun, they cannot (legally) train at a range, and if they are found to be in possession of a weapon, regardless of whether they plan to use it in the commission of a crime, they go back to prison.

That, of course, leaves the small group of potential felons who have not yet been convicted. They certainly could buy a weapon and train extensively with it before a crime, but such a chain of events is a rare occurrence. The vast majority of would be criminals obtain their weapons through illegal channels and only have a passing understanding of their functionality (pull trigger, insert mag, etc.). Apart from some sophisticated criminals, the kind of small time street thugs that your average American buys a weapon to defend against are not going to be spending money on a weapon and extensive range time and ammunition, all of which are pretty costly, especially if you are desperate enough to be holding people up.

As far as parents teaching their children proper firearms operation and safety - there should be more of it. If a person keeps a weapon in their home with kids, those kids need to be educated on its operation and lethality. If America has a gun problem, it is not with the statistically significant but functionally irrelevant higher gun crime rate versus certain Western European nations, but with accidental firearms deaths. These are usually a direct result of someone with no knowledge (many times a child) of firearms handling one.

As usual with the current generation of absentee parents in America, guns (drugs, unsafe sex, drag racing, etc.) are portrayed as sexy on TV and parents are not willing to take the time to correct that notion. Then comes the day junior wants to impress his friends and grabs daddy's pistol out of his night stand and a completely preventable tragedy is created. The US used to have a very popular Civilian Marksmanship Program much like the one found in Switzerland. I think it is still around in some rural areas. Kids were taught from a young age the proper handling, operation, and maintenance of firearms in a safety oriented environment. The sexy was stripped away as kids were taught that a gun is nothing more than a tool - one to be used responsibly. America would benefit from a resurgence in the program.

Over a few decades, the whole culture is transformed into... well, what you chaps have in the US at the moment. That’s where one of my small quandaries on the matter springs from at least

What exactly do we have at the moment? Despite the recession, violent crime has been steadily and precipitously declining. On the other hand, gun laws have been loosened and gun sales have been steadily rising.

[Nowake]

(i) the kind of small time street thugs that your average American buys a weapon to defend against are not going to be spending money on a weapon and extensive range time and ammunition, all of which are pretty costly, especially if you are desperate enough to be holding people up. (...)
(ii) What exactly do we have at the moment? Despite the recession, violent crime has been steadily and precipitously declining. On the other hand, gun laws have been loosened and gun sales have been steadily rising.

Let me restate, I do not hold a particular stand for or against legalising guns. I also think there have been no definitive studies produced yet, studies capable of tipping the balance towards or against the NRA. Moreover, as a teen, I was taught to handle guns myself by an adult – nothing too serious, pistols, Romanian AKs, Benelli shotguns and such – thus I do not deem this type of education wrong per se. And yes, I expected the argument (i) and it is why my point was that black kids shooting each other over corners are the result of a mentality that was developed in people by the infrastructure over decades and not that they’re topping marksman charts themselves.

It is why I ask if there isn’t a genuine cultural problem (ii). Take Romania for example, not Western European countries. And we’ll leave aside that weapon-related criminality is simply a lot smaller. Now, 90% of the weapon-related crimes here belong to gypsy gangs, the vast majority of them using white arms: "ninja swords" (I kid you not, this is the weapon of choice, they buy real factory produced katana in bulk) baseball bats, hatchets or, at best, air pistols – and not because they’d be a sort of cavemen, most drive SUVs. Here you’re simply seen as stupid if you want to engage in gun crime, no one is willing to be caught with them; you want to settle inter-gang disputes or mug someone, you employ white arms (cool arms I believe you call them). Over the pond, your criminals do not seem to even view it as a possibility. Employing guns in any sort of violent assault is the norm. Take the second clip Shaka Khan linked above – why on earth weren’t those kids using baseball bats to get their point across. Illegal guns are just as readily available here as in the US. It is reasonable to speculate this problem was created through the deep imagology of a society intimately acquainted with firearms.

[PanzerJaeger]

Let me restate, I do not hold a particular stand for or against legalising guns. I also think there have been no definitive studies produced yet, studies capable of tipping the balance towards or against the NRA. Moreover, as a teen, I was taught to handle guns myself by an adult – nothing too serious, pistols, Romanian AKs, Benelli shotguns and such – thus I do not deem this type of education wrong per se. And yes, I expected the argument (i) and it is why my point was that black kids shooting each other over corners are the result of a mentality that was developed in people by the infrastructure over decades and not that they’re topping marksman charts themselves.

It is why I ask if there isn’t a genuine cultural problem (ii). Take Romania for example, not Western European countries. And we’ll leave aside that weapon-related criminality is simply a lot smaller. Now, 90% of the weapon-related crimes here belong to gypsy gangs, the vast majority of them using white arms: "ninja swords" (I kid you not, this is the weapon of choice, they buy real factory produced katana in bulk) baseball bats, hatchets or, at best, air pistols – and not because they’d be a sort of cavemen, most drive SUVs. Here you’re simply seen as stupid if you want to engage in gun crime, no one is willing to be caught with them; you want to settle inter-gang disputes or mug someone, you employ white arms (cool arms I believe you call them). Over the pond, your criminals do not seem to even view it as a possibility. Employing guns in any sort of violent assault is the norm. Take the second clip Shaka Khan linked above – why on earth weren’t those kids using baseball bats to get their point across. Illegal guns are just as readily available here as in the US. It is reasonable to speculate this problem was created through the deep imagology of a society intimately acquainted with firearms.

Well you are right that it is a cultural problem, but that problem is limited to a very specific subculture. The vast majority of gun crimes in the US are committed by poor, urban street thugs with illegally obtained weapons against other poor, urban street thugs. Second to those are the crimes committed by poor, urban thugs against non poor, urban people who are their targets. The rise of gun violence starting in the '70's and peaking in the early '90s can be directly correlated with the rise and relative decline of urban street gangs in America's cities. (The recent rise in gun crime in Britain over the last decade has been traced to the same problem.)

That is why lawful gun owners are so offended by broad brush, politically correct gun control measures and, in turn, why they have made the NRA so powerful. Studies have shown that those who have concealed carry licenses, ie, those who are law abiding gun owners, are far less likely to commit crime than the general population. And yet, they would be the only ones effected by gun bans and the like, as street thugs do not legally obtain and carry their weapons anyway. Most responsible gun owners support efforts like Project Exile, which actually target the inner city problem effectively instead of stripping law abiding citizens of their freedoms. However, there will always be a gun violence problem in the slums as long as there are slums. Remedying that issue goes far beyond gun control.

[Major Robert Dump]

The Phillipines is a good example of gun culture gone awry. Too much too fast, methinks. And in 30 days I will get to find this out first hand on R&R