Anyone else notice how many pro-gun arguments seem to be bizarrely fatalistic?
If we ban guns bad people will still magically obtain them.
Even if they don't they will still perform the exact same actions and harm the exact same number of people.
People are killed accidentally or in crimes of passion by guns but with the guns removed those accidents or crimes will still mysteriously occur via a different method.
Its true in a certain sense though. If you do ban guns, then bads guys can get a hold of them. There are illegal substances and illegal items are folks can get their hands on. ~~ As far as how many could, thats not an easy question to answer? If you did ban guns, there would defiantly be less folks with guns. But guns wouldnt disappear.
And you don't need guns to commit grievous acts of violence, however it is an excellent tool for it. And you dont need guns to have grievous acts of happenstance either.
NRA, and other pro gun folks, tend to posit their argument that the gun is a tool and that like a lot of tools they can be mishandled and abused. But the mere fact that the tool (gun) can be misused, doesnt mean that the gun(tool) in of itself is bad. The face of that argument, its pretty sound really.
The weak point is though, is how useful is the tool in our society compared with the inherent danger of using said tool. Theres lots of potentially dangerous tools we have and or exposed to in our daily lives that do cause a lot of grievous harm, but their usefulness to our society as whole makes them overall worthwhile to keep around. The car comes to mind. The car causes a lot of harm in a multitude of ways but we find it overall worthwhile to keep around.
There were over 300,000 gun deaths in the US last year, most involving private people. In the UK, there were around 20, most involving the Police. Adjusting for population, the UK is still far lower. The UK has the best/most effective gun control laws on the planet and they work - they reduce gun killing, and nobody (ok, 95% of people) here ever sees a gun unless its in the hands of a solider or policeman. This you can not argue against.
300k is a lot of gun related deaths for 2011. From a pro gun point of view, those folks were probably going to die via other means and that the gun is incidental to their death. This falls in line with their baseline argument that the gun is a tool. The argument therein , how many of those 300k would have died regardless if there werent guns involved.
But Crimes overall in the US have been on a steady down hill trend for a long bit now, and for the US we're near a 60 year low in crimes overall. Which suggests there are a lot of other factors at play for homicides other then gun ownership.
And as far homicide due to gun violence, the US isn't that bad actually. 17th most gun related homicides per 100k capitca. And we're close to being the 18th then the 16th. Overall homicide rates the US is a little bit higher then Europe, but overall far under the Worlds Average homicide rate.
So with our homicide rates not exactly overwhelmingly higher then Europe, gun ownership laws dont seem to play as large of a role as one may expect.
You could argue however that it's much easier to regulate in the UK, considering how the USA happens to be a great deal bigger and not an island. That's why I'd say banning guns in America would require a vastly increased police force.
Now what happens when you vastly increase a police force in a country turning into a police state... Ugh.
Banning guns, just completly outright in the US would require more then just more cops. Its part of the US Bill of Rights. Its also deeply ingrained in our sense of culture, image of individuality and patriotism. The Gun is seen as the tool, that empowered the US to break way from UK and to tame the West, to take a hold of our dreams and to protect what we feel is rightfully ours. The Gun, as a symbol is very deeply personal to us in the US which is why gun laws and gun regulations is a hot bed issues.
I frankly don't think it'll ever be feasible to get ban all guns in the US.
And the Right to Bear Arms is still an important aspect of the US Constitution. It ensures that the People, if ever felt so embolden or needful could bear arms against an oppressive government. Now, how feasible this could actually be to do in a modern context would be a fun debate, but the function of that allowance is important. It does however places a great deal of burden on US Society to accept the shortcomings of owning guns. And tragedies like the Aurora Shooting is part of that burden.
However, guns aren't the only means which tragedies can happen.
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