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[kaijyuu]

<- would personally love it if cars were vastly more restricted, due to the danger they pose

[scriver]

Once again, gun regulation does not mean people won't be allowed to hunt or to gun sports.

Personally I would like cars banned in our (two) large cities as well, but for environmental reason rather than the danger they pose. How some American states can allow kids to take licenses ill never understand, though.

[Frumple]

May have had that discussion a while back, but in a lot of american towns, especially the smaller ones, most people are not going to be able to function without a car. In the case of teens, it tends to be done either to free up the parent from driving them to school (Not all areas have bus access, sorry) or allow them to seek employment -- as well as start to accumulate the experience needed to be a good driver.

The US could seriously stand some goddamn public transportation upgrades, though. Not even joking.

[Andir]

Eh, life is dangerous and criminals will always find new tools.  We humans are a creative bunch of people (I mean, planes into buildings... who thinks of this?) and if you continue to restrict items based on their relative destructive power you'll eventually end up restricting knives to chefs (baseball bats to sports teams...) and force them to lock up their tools like we do guns today.  I don't blame inanimate objects for crime.  I blame the person.

[Loud Whispers]

Get this, I've never cut myself (badly) with knives. Even the time I dropped it on my own foot. Not even a dent.

But the amount of times I've hurt myself with scissors... I've nearly cut one of my digits off with them!

So, Knives must be made mandatory, and scissors illegal!

[kaijyuu]

How some American states can allow kids to take licenses ill never understand, though.

If they're competent drivers, I see no reason why they shouldn't.

Problem is, most drivers of every age aren't competent. We hand out licenses like candy.



Back on topic...

One of the arguments I always hear is "if guns are banned, only criminals will have them." How effective is gun control in keeping them out of the hands of people who would use them for robberies/etc?

Gun control seems fine for preventing gun accidents, and mitigating violent crimes of passion, but I dunno so much about premeditated stuff. If you're willing to break the law to mug/rob/murder, what's stopping you from breaking the law to get a gun?

[ChairmanPoo]

Slippery slope fallacy.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Personally I would like cars banned in our (two) large cities as well, but for environmental reason rather than the danger they pose.

Cars in cities pose a very, very small environmental threat in the big picture. It's an ineffective strategy that ignores the bigger problems.

How some American states can allow kids to take licenses ill never understand, though.

What Frumple said, and for the same reason that alcohol has such a low age restriction in Europe: The earlier you learn, the less likely you are to fail at it as an adult.

[Leafsnail]

Also on violent crime in Britain: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html

ALERT ALERT ALERT

7. Do not link to a tabloid (such as, e.g., The Daily Mail) as a news source.  You may mock the state of journalism if you like via such links, however.  Satire articles are also okay.

The Daily Mail is not a newspaper.  They do not do journalism.  They just write what their readers want to read (that "we're going to hell in a handcart" and the only way to stop that is to kick out immigrants).  You'll find that, mysteriously, things they say in their articles are not replicated anywhere else.  And in fact their article explains exactly why Britain comes out on top, they just bury it under their wailing.

In Britain, an affray is considered a violent crime, while in other countries it will only be logged if a person is physically injured.

In other words, any fight goes down as a "violent crime" here.  Hence the figures are massively inflated.  Hence it makes a lot more sense to compare individual, well defined crimes like murder rather than a big label that is defined differently in different countries.

Having a gun does give you an advantage even if your aggressor has one, simply because it is very obviously dangerous and the attacker must consider if the risk of grievous injury or death is worth whatever he wants from you.

Or maybe he'll just shoot you before you have a chance to respond.  Heck, maybe he'll make a habit of shooting people before they have a chance to respond when robbing them.

Gun control seems fine for preventing gun accidents, and mitigating violent crimes of passion, but I dunno so much about premeditated stuff. If you're willing to break the law to mug/rob/murder, what's stopping you from breaking the law to get a gun?

The possibility that you'll get caught while purchasing your gun.  The possibility that they'll find the guy who sold you the gun and he'll rat you out.  The possibility of the gun linking you to the crime after the fact.  The fact that owning a gun illegally would make your sentence far more severe.

[kaijyuu]

Gun control seems fine for preventing gun accidents, and mitigating violent crimes of passion, but I dunno so much about premeditated stuff. If you're willing to break the law to mug/rob/murder, what's stopping you from breaking the law to get a gun?

The possibility that you'll get caught while purchasing your gun.  The possibility that they'll find the guy who sold you the gun and he'll rat you out.  The possibility of the gun linking you to the crime after the fact.  The fact that owning a gun illegally would make your sentence far more severe.

Hrm... Fair enough.


I support gun control personally though it's not something I'm very passionate about. I'll leave the rest of the debate to ya'll, since I have nothing really more to add.

[Montague]

More than 90% of gunshot victims survive in the US.

Your point?

One point to that statistic, back in the olden dayes when they imagined the 2nd amendment, the survival rate for a gunshot victim would be more like 10% due to the state of medical science back then. Sure, they didn't have semiautomatic handguns and high powered rifles, but they did have things like 8 gauge shotguns that could be fired into a crowd, which would result in a similar number of fatalities as any modern psycho-shooting spree might result.

Also, I'd point out that gun crime and gun ownership to not reliably correlate. Not even in Europe. You can point to the UK and Germany, I can point to Norway and Switzerland. Different states in the US vary in gun ownership and gun violence. In many cases, increased gun ownership correlates to decreased gun crime.

[Sheb]

Damn, I wrote a large text, just to see Leafsnail ninja me.

Anyway, last thing: neither hunting nor sport shooting require you to carry a gun in your pocket, or to stock it at your home. Strict regulations can limit the bad uses of guns while allowing legitimate activities.

[Nadaka]

Damn, I wrote a large text, just to see Leafsnail ninja me.

Anyway, last thing: neither hunting nor sport shooting require you to carry a gun in your pocket, or to stock it at your home. Strict regulations can limit the bad uses of guns while allowing legitimate activities.

I am afraid you are wrong. Strict regulation does nothing to stop those who don't care about regulation, it only means that law abiding citizens are defenseless when they need to defend themselves the most.

[Sheb]

Well, I think we've nailed down our difference. You think regulations have no effect on gun use for crime, I think they do. It's not ideology anymore, it's a simple statistical fact that can be found somewhere out there on the internet.

I've only got like 6 hours of sleep left before having to go to the uni, so I won't go and look for those stats now (I'll do it tomorrow if I remember). But can we agree that if the stats show no effect from regulation on gun crime you'll be right and that if regulation has a positive effect I'll be right?

[Nadaka]

Well, I think we've nailed down our difference. You think regulations have no effect on gun use for crime, I think they do. It's not ideology anymore, it's a simple statistical fact that can be found somewhere out there on the internet.

I've only got like 6 hours of sleep left before having to go to the uni, so I won't go and look for those stats now (I'll do it tomorrow if I remember). But can we agree that if the stats show no effect from regulation on gun crime you'll be right and that if regulation has a positive effect I'll be right?

NO we can not agree. There is no such thing as gun crime.