I'm honestly tired of repeating this debate over and over. I've long since realised I'm probably never going to make anyone pro-gun see sense.
You assume that I'm not seeing sense. Why can't you be the one not seeing sense?
So I might as well use this as a learning experience instead.
So here's a legitimate question. What is it that makes America so special? Why is it that people in the US are so convinced that gun control will never work there when it has worked in literally every other first world country that has implemented it? Someone explain to me what makes the US so vastly different from similar nations.
Gun control does not work in all countries. Look at Mexico. Super strict gun laws yet gun homicides higher than the US.
You can say it's the gangs, but there's gangs in the UK, Australia, Japan etc etc too. Plus, all of those guns started life off being made and sold by legal manufacturers.
Not all of those guns were legally manufactured. There are plenty of guns made in workshops. It's really not that hard. Basic plumbing supplies can get you a basic one shot weapon.
On top of that, which we can see from the Chicago situation, a lot of the guns used in gang crime are just bought across state lines from places with laxer laws.
Most of those purchases are illegal straw purchases. It's flat out illegal for a person to cross state lines to buy a handgun. All of those purchases must be made in the home state.
Surely having tighter restrictions across the board would thus reduce the number of weapons in the hands of gangs.
They aren't enforcing all of the current laws.
I don't want to hear the hand-wave answer of "oh but criminals will always get and use guns" either, because while it's true that some criminals absolutely would still manage, there would still be a reduction. Not to mention the black market is expensive because supply and demand is a thing.
People can make guns in the garages. There have been clandestine gun manufacturing places found all over the world making really good fakes. The laws also work to prevent the law-abiding who needs a gun for protection from getting one. There are 500,000 to 2.5 million self defense gun uses per year. Even the last study from the CDC said that guns are used defensively more than criminally and people who use guns for self defense experience fewer injuries than people that use other means.
You can say that it's because of having such a large and diverse population. That argument actually doesn't look half bad at first... until you start breaking things down more. Australia, the UK, Canada and, hell, technically even the EU countries all have ethnically diverse populations too. You can say it's because they have smaller populations, but a lot of them have similar population density (obviously not Australia but I'm getting to that). Then there's also the fact that this assumption that population = more gun crime breaks down entirely if you start looking at individual cities.
Not every city in the US with similar population density has the same gun crime stats.
NYC is the largest city with the biggest and most diverse population in the Western hemisphere, but it's got less gun crime than St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, Baltimore and a bucketload of other places and coincidentally better gun control than almost everywhere it beats.
It also has more guns than the UK and is yet lower in crime. Why is that?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/london-now-dangerous-new-york-crime-stats-suggest/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/01/police-launch-murder-hunt-30th-stabbing-london-year/
Internationally, Sydney and Melbourne all have considerably higher populations than every US city bar NYC, less gun crime and also better gun control.
Better? Debatable.
https://freebeacon.com/issues/australia-sees-spike-in-gun-crime-despite-outright-ban/
And supporting my point is the demand for yet more regulations.
Tokyo has a larger population and population density by far compared to US cities, but less gun crime and also coincidentally better gun control.
Japan also has a highly rigid culture that leads to a higher suicide rate for people that fail in their society.
Because of how prevalent your gun culture is? I can agree that if anything this would be the biggest factor but, let's be realistic for a moment. Nobody is going to start a civil war over gun control. I don't even think people would go to that length for an actual ban and that's not what we're talking about here - at the very least nobody in their right mind is. The simple fact is that anyone who even tried to rise up against the government for enacting gun control would not only be a very good example of the kind of people who shouldn't have guns to begin with but would just flat out lose. A handful of crazy people might actually be stupid enough to try but there wouldn't be any movement catching on.
I have my doubts about some of the gun grabbers. Any number of them think the deaths of lot of gun owners would be a good thing. Look at Bronze. Save a 7,000 by killing or imprisoning tens of millions. Gun owners wouldn't even have to rise up. They'd simply not comply. California has just revealed that gun owners aren't running background checks on private sales. At least two states added "assault rifle" registries that the people simply refused to register their rifles on. At that point, the gov't would have to try and force the issue or simply ignore it. How will people react if the gov't started kicking in doors? What if more legal gun owners die due to so called "red flag" laws? Police in Maryland killed a man after he objected to losing his guns because he had an argument with a family member. No court case, no charges files. Secret complaint. Sounds like a great idea for laws. What's next? Secret tribunals that convict you ahead of time?
I'm not trying to change minds here anymore, I have well and truly given up on that. What I want right now is to at the very least try to understand why, despite all of this, you on the the pro-gun side believe that having better gun control would not work in the US.
1. Number of guns.
2. Constitutional Right.
Or is it not about whether it would work or not? Is it a question of the personal freedom of being able to carry a weapon outweighing the societal affects of easy access to weaponry? Or a question of fear of the government potentially altering the constitutional amendments (nevermind that they're called amendments for a reason) outweighing the positives?
The societal effect of weapons goes both ways. Instead of waiting for the police to respond, I can defend myself. Instead of being raped, a woman can defend herself. A gun owner isn't beholden to other people for protection.
Criminals don't follow the law. Gun control advocates won't stop. They are seriously wanting social media searches or mandatory home inspections to insure safe storage of guns or even making third party people responsible for the actions of customers or thieves. They try to play word games by stating "well the constitution says "arms" so we can ban ammo without needing an amendment."
They ignore that a shooter used a handgun and push for rifle bans. They scare people by talking about "untraceable" home made guns without mentioning that there don't seem to be any crimes committed with those guns.
I just want to understand why.
Why do you want to restrict guns? Why should I lose my right to self defense with effective tools because of others? Why should I trust that the gov't or society will always be great and wonderful?
What I would like to know is:
1. You argue that gun control isn't needed because an overwhelming majority of people are law-abiding citizens.
while
2. The US has a gigantic military budget and strong defenses against any form of attack.
Yet, despite 2. being true, the US has no country in both Americas that could or would declare war on them. You could even argue that no country in the world could declare war on them, because in today's world every country is too interconnected in trade, relationships and economy especially, that it wouldn't help anyone.
Regardless, all evidence suggests that the US as a country and its common people are save from outside sources.
The military tries to protect against outside sources. They can't get every threat. Riots happen, terrorist attacks happen, natural disasters lead to looting and violence, wild animals exist, etc.
Then the question is this, why do people in the US need private guns - and we are talking not (just) about handguns here, but also semi-automatic or even automatic guns - if 1. is true? From what do you need to save your familiy or yourself, if you are already save
? Not all citizens are law-abiding. Depending on where you live, the police can be hours away. Long time to be raped and murdered. Handguns are good for personal defense while out and about. Shotguns are good for personal home defense. Rifles are good for long distance defense. Large capacity means you can defend against more opponents. Think mobs. Rapid fire is good for lots of holes in things or getting larger groups like feral pigs.
So either the people of your country are not as law-abiding as you say they are, which would mean that argument 1. is not true, this meaning you would need gun control.
Or 1. is true, which would mean that you would not need guns as you do now, because there is no reason to defend yourself.
Circular and flawed logic. Removing guns would only insure that the law-abiding have to use less effective tools against those that seek to do harm to them. If every person was law-abiding, then gun control wouldn't be needed at all. Why take away something that people aren't using to hurt each other?
Your arguments are flawed either way.
You created a false argument.
