Reply to Re: My opinion on the school shootings in the US
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Our hope would be that the criminals fight amongst themselves too much to worry about normal people.
That, or simply that they consider the risk of raiding houses too great. And it should be. Breaking into a house with people in it, even if you don't expect them to have guns, is a dangerous affair. Especially if this starts to be "common" and people are expecting you. In my house, I can walk around pretty well in the dark; they most likely cannot. And it shouldn't be too hard to hit someone on the head with a frying pan, stab him with a knife, or touch him with a bare electrical cable that is plugged into the wall socket. After that, you can take his gun and shoot him and his partners, if any. Obviously such an attack is risky, and it is likely that some people will die. But on average, many more gang members will die real soon. And they will stop entering houses because they don't want that.
But if they were to work together, it could be catastrophic. With enough criminals working together I don't think the police would be good enough, we would need to call in the army or something...
If that is the case, then that must indeed be done. As I explained above, smart criminals won't let it come so far, though. And you may expect those gangs to be led by smart people.
However, from what I hear your description is close to the situation in Mexico, so perhaps I am too optimistic.
there are bigger causes of death in the US than guns
I would certainly hope so. If the main causes of death are anything not related to natural causes (disease and old age), your country is probably involved in an extremely brutal war involving genocide.
In the end everyone must die and that is not a sad thing. What should be avoided is premature deaths. Almost every gun death falls in that category (arguably suicide can in some cases be considered auto-euthanasia), as do many other things, such as car accidents. The interesting comparison is all non-disease-related deaths. I'm having a hard time finding nice tables about this, but it seems clear that those are much higher in the US than elsewhere, and the difference is only due to gun deaths.
if we improve our schools and such to take down suicide rates, it's a fair guess that gun violence (and accidents) would go down too.
Yes, that seems reasonable.
We need to fix the root, not bury it and hope that the problem goes away, because it won't.
True, but allowing anyone to have a gun has many drawbacks and no real advantages. The most claimed advantage is increased safety, and in fact it has the opposite effect.
So while the education system should be improved if it's bad (I don't really know, but I'll take your word that it is), that is no reason to allow guns; these are unrelated and there is no reason to fix only one of them.
it's easier to commit suicide when you have a gun
Certainly, this is in fact one of the reasons that having a gun is dangerous for you: there is a higher probability of "completed suicide" in a situation where you have the same probability of "attempted suicide". Interesting to note is this (no need to sign in; you only need the first answer): people who attempt suicide as an act of passion are less likely to try again if they fail, and more likely to choose a very deadly method; an unfortunate combination. Anyway, taking guns away from them will likely lead to more of them failing, and many will not try again. From that I conclude that it is good that they fail. (For those who do try again, it is at least debatable whether they should fail; if they will want to die until they do, it is perhaps best if that is soon.)
Just remember that jungle affairs aren't the only possible way a person could die from guns being outlawed.
So far, the causes that have been brought to the table are:
- Being lost or encountering a dangerous animal in the wilderness -> this should be no concern.
- People breaking into your house -> you're actually safer without a gun if that happens.
- Riots over banning guns -> this may be a serious problem, but it's temporary and no reason to avoid a ban altogether; at best it's a reason for doing it slowly and carefully. More discussion below.
Did I miss any?
Ah, printing guns, that would become very popular if guns were banned. I hadn't even thought of that.
There's a lot of press around it. When people tell someone they work with 3-D printers, they often get a response which has to do with printing guns.
But it's really a non-issue. You can make a better, cheaper and safer (although not safe) gun than you can print, using some steel and regular tools like drills and files.
But one of those guys that Skull hates so much thought it would be a neat idea to print a gun, and he made the news big time. While there are so many nice things you can do with those printers...
1. Banning guns would damage the economy.
Sure. If you want such a major change, lots of people lose their job. But that's not a bad thing in itself; those are qualified people and new companies can offer them a job to do things for which at the moment no people can be found. I don't see why shutting down the weapons industry would need to be compensated at all, and why those people would need to remain unemployed. In fact, I would be interested to see what they would do; such a big group of people starting something new could lead to very interesting things.
Obviously the industry will complain, and they will say half the country will starve. But in reality, people will move on and get a new job.
2. I don't see how the government could reimburse people for guns that are taken from them, especially gun collectors will lose their life collection of guns, and it will be catastrophic to them.
They don't have to, as I'll explain. For collections, it is usually acceptable to make the weapons unusable. For antique weapons, you can in many countries get a permit to have them as an ornament. Note that this is about weapons which aren't "grab-and-shoot" anyway, and they aren't allowed to have bullets.
3. People who organize hunting, targets, or own organizations related to those things will be out of business, further damaging the economy.
See 1.
4. How could this be enforced? Will police go to every single persons house and search them unwarranted to find these guns (and thus find everyone's pot collections and arrest them in the process)?
No, certainly not. You should start by forbidding to sell guns (unless the buyer has a permit, which should be very hard to get) and forbidding to carry them in any public place. You should probably wait at least a generation before forbidding to have a gun in your house and even then the police must not be allowed to search the house unless they have reason to suspect you of a crime.
I think treating gun laws the same as drug laws would absolutely not work (where they could only search if there is reasonable suspicion you have a gun).
That's how it works in the Netherlands, and it works real well, AFAIK. Especially if it isn't actually illegal to have a gun in your house for one, maybe two generations, I think it can work in the US as well. If selling new guns is outlawed, it works even better, because then the weapons industry then doesn't have an incentive to tell people how much they need guns.
The only thing it would do is make people hide their guns better. But police invading EVERY person's home in the country would create an outrage,
And rightfully so; being the master of your house is very important for people. Only in very exceptional situations may the police violate this right.
5. How would a gradual gun law work? I know the strictness of gun control could be improved and that would be a great start and the most logical current solution.
A good start would be to disallow people to carry a gun in any public place, including outdoors. That way, many real innocent gun deaths can be avoided (where I define people being shot related to them having a gun as not real innocent). It would be a great incentive for many people to not want a gun, especially if the statistics about this ("owning a gun is a health risk") are widely publicized.
Forbidding people to have guns in their home can probably not be done within 20 years or so. But if anyone who has a gun in their car or in the street can be arrested, it would probably be quite a bit safer, especially for people who don't own guns.
implement features into guns that make them less easy for a child to use
You mean like those "safety caps" on bottles, for which you need to get a child, because they're the only ones who can figure out how to open them?
lock those guns up folks!
The article I linked before actually mentions that locking them up doesn't really reduce the risk of accidents. I'm guessing this is because either the kids know where the keys are, or the guns are taken from their safe place by the parent. The only thing you may prevent with it is children killing their parents, but that probably doesn't happen a lot anyway.
I'm not sure how background checks work here, but those could probably be made stricter as well.
In the Netherlands, that is actually a major problem: the police is supposed to check people with a permit, but they are underpaid (and thus understaffed) and other things are always more urgent. So these checks aren't done well, if at all. I expect the same problem in the US. For us, the good thing is that there aren't so many people with a permit so even without good checks, we're still quite safe. Almost nobody can start shooting in a rage, because they simply don't have access to a gun.
Guns could be illegal to sell without a license
I think in most countries they are "registered goods", meaning you have to tell the government about any sale, so they can record it in the registry they have. Obviously nobody is allowed to sell a gun to someone who doesn't have a permit.
Buying gun ammo should require you to show the gun and receipt and proof of identity
Or just identity, and gun sellers have a link to the registry to check that you have a permit. In fact, the registry should be updated before they hand you the gun, and the update will fail if the buyer doesn't have a permit.
the black market being seriously empowered
That may happen if enforcement of "no guns in the street" is lacking. In the Netherlands, the police cannot search you unless they suspect you of a crime. But in some places, notably in shopping centers, you are not allowed to carry knives and they may do preemptive searches. I think this method works well. Obviously, when they find a gun, the person is arrested (having a gun with you is a felony). They don't go look for them unless they have a reason to believe there is one.
If the enforcement works, then people will likely want fewer, not more guns, because they have fewer places to use them. So I wouldn't worry about the black market.
this would make suicides less common (as the gun is harder to reach)
I doubt that. If your gun is locked up and you have the key, that doesn't really count as "hard to reach" in my book.
people would be less likely to be shot by a break-in because they might not have as easy a time getting to the gun to make the other person scared enough to shoot them.
People who want a gun in their house to protect themselves will make sure that they keep it in a place where they can get to it if there is a break-in. So I don't think this will be any different either.
teens would be less likely to go rob some place if the gun was locked up
Possibly, but I don't think so either. Teens are very inventive and I expect them to know better than their parents how to open that lock.
well except for the more resourceful ones, who could come up with some interesting things
If you mean intelligence as resource, I would agree; I don't think they need much money in most cases.
That, or simply that they consider the risk of raiding houses too great. And it should be. Breaking into a house with people in it, even if you don't expect them to have guns, is a dangerous affair. Especially if this starts to be "common" and people are expecting you. In my house, I can walk around pretty well in the dark; they most likely cannot. And it shouldn't be too hard to hit someone on the head with a frying pan, stab him with a knife, or touch him with a bare electrical cable that is plugged into the wall socket. After that, you can take his gun and shoot him and his partners, if any. Obviously such an attack is risky, and it is likely that some people will die. But on average, many more gang members will die real soon. And they will stop entering houses because they don't want that.
But if they were to work together, it could be catastrophic. With enough criminals working together I don't think the police would be good enough, we would need to call in the army or something...
If that is the case, then that must indeed be done. As I explained above, smart criminals won't let it come so far, though. And you may expect those gangs to be led by smart people.
However, from what I hear your description is close to the situation in Mexico, so perhaps I am too optimistic.
there are bigger causes of death in the US than guns
I would certainly hope so. If the main causes of death are anything not related to natural causes (disease and old age), your country is probably involved in an extremely brutal war involving genocide.
In the end everyone must die and that is not a sad thing. What should be avoided is premature deaths. Almost every gun death falls in that category (arguably suicide can in some cases be considered auto-euthanasia), as do many other things, such as car accidents. The interesting comparison is all non-disease-related deaths. I'm having a hard time finding nice tables about this, but it seems clear that those are much higher in the US than elsewhere, and the difference is only due to gun deaths.
if we improve our schools and such to take down suicide rates, it's a fair guess that gun violence (and accidents) would go down too.
Yes, that seems reasonable.
We need to fix the root, not bury it and hope that the problem goes away, because it won't.
True, but allowing anyone to have a gun has many drawbacks and no real advantages. The most claimed advantage is increased safety, and in fact it has the opposite effect.
So while the education system should be improved if it's bad (I don't really know, but I'll take your word that it is), that is no reason to allow guns; these are unrelated and there is no reason to fix only one of them.
it's easier to commit suicide when you have a gun
Certainly, this is in fact one of the reasons that having a gun is dangerous for you: there is a higher probability of "completed suicide" in a situation where you have the same probability of "attempted suicide". Interesting to note is this (no need to sign in; you only need the first answer): people who attempt suicide as an act of passion are less likely to try again if they fail, and more likely to choose a very deadly method; an unfortunate combination. Anyway, taking guns away from them will likely lead to more of them failing, and many will not try again. From that I conclude that it is good that they fail. (For those who do try again, it is at least debatable whether they should fail; if they will want to die until they do, it is perhaps best if that is soon.)
Just remember that jungle affairs aren't the only possible way a person could die from guns being outlawed.
So far, the causes that have been brought to the table are:
- Being lost or encountering a dangerous animal in the wilderness -> this should be no concern.
- People breaking into your house -> you're actually safer without a gun if that happens.
- Riots over banning guns -> this may be a serious problem, but it's temporary and no reason to avoid a ban altogether; at best it's a reason for doing it slowly and carefully. More discussion below.
Did I miss any?
Ah, printing guns, that would become very popular if guns were banned. I hadn't even thought of that.
There's a lot of press around it. When people tell someone they work with 3-D printers, they often get a response which has to do with printing guns.
But it's really a non-issue. You can make a better, cheaper and safer (although not safe) gun than you can print, using some steel and regular tools like drills and files.
But one of those guys that Skull hates so much thought it would be a neat idea to print a gun, and he made the news big time. While there are so many nice things you can do with those printers...
1. Banning guns would damage the economy.
Sure. If you want such a major change, lots of people lose their job. But that's not a bad thing in itself; those are qualified people and new companies can offer them a job to do things for which at the moment no people can be found. I don't see why shutting down the weapons industry would need to be compensated at all, and why those people would need to remain unemployed. In fact, I would be interested to see what they would do; such a big group of people starting something new could lead to very interesting things.
Obviously the industry will complain, and they will say half the country will starve. But in reality, people will move on and get a new job.
2. I don't see how the government could reimburse people for guns that are taken from them, especially gun collectors will lose their life collection of guns, and it will be catastrophic to them.
They don't have to, as I'll explain. For collections, it is usually acceptable to make the weapons unusable. For antique weapons, you can in many countries get a permit to have them as an ornament. Note that this is about weapons which aren't "grab-and-shoot" anyway, and they aren't allowed to have bullets.
3. People who organize hunting, targets, or own organizations related to those things will be out of business, further damaging the economy.
See 1.
4. How could this be enforced? Will police go to every single persons house and search them unwarranted to find these guns (and thus find everyone's pot collections and arrest them in the process)?
No, certainly not. You should start by forbidding to sell guns (unless the buyer has a permit, which should be very hard to get) and forbidding to carry them in any public place. You should probably wait at least a generation before forbidding to have a gun in your house and even then the police must not be allowed to search the house unless they have reason to suspect you of a crime.
I think treating gun laws the same as drug laws would absolutely not work (where they could only search if there is reasonable suspicion you have a gun).
That's how it works in the Netherlands, and it works real well, AFAIK. Especially if it isn't actually illegal to have a gun in your house for one, maybe two generations, I think it can work in the US as well. If selling new guns is outlawed, it works even better, because then the weapons industry then doesn't have an incentive to tell people how much they need guns.
The only thing it would do is make people hide their guns better. But police invading EVERY person's home in the country would create an outrage,
And rightfully so; being the master of your house is very important for people. Only in very exceptional situations may the police violate this right.
5. How would a gradual gun law work? I know the strictness of gun control could be improved and that would be a great start and the most logical current solution.
A good start would be to disallow people to carry a gun in any public place, including outdoors. That way, many real innocent gun deaths can be avoided (where I define people being shot related to them having a gun as not real innocent). It would be a great incentive for many people to not want a gun, especially if the statistics about this ("owning a gun is a health risk") are widely publicized.
Forbidding people to have guns in their home can probably not be done within 20 years or so. But if anyone who has a gun in their car or in the street can be arrested, it would probably be quite a bit safer, especially for people who don't own guns.
implement features into guns that make them less easy for a child to use
You mean like those "safety caps" on bottles, for which you need to get a child, because they're the only ones who can figure out how to open them?
lock those guns up folks!
The article I linked before actually mentions that locking them up doesn't really reduce the risk of accidents. I'm guessing this is because either the kids know where the keys are, or the guns are taken from their safe place by the parent. The only thing you may prevent with it is children killing their parents, but that probably doesn't happen a lot anyway.
I'm not sure how background checks work here, but those could probably be made stricter as well.
In the Netherlands, that is actually a major problem: the police is supposed to check people with a permit, but they are underpaid (and thus understaffed) and other things are always more urgent. So these checks aren't done well, if at all. I expect the same problem in the US. For us, the good thing is that there aren't so many people with a permit so even without good checks, we're still quite safe. Almost nobody can start shooting in a rage, because they simply don't have access to a gun.
Guns could be illegal to sell without a license
I think in most countries they are "registered goods", meaning you have to tell the government about any sale, so they can record it in the registry they have. Obviously nobody is allowed to sell a gun to someone who doesn't have a permit.
Buying gun ammo should require you to show the gun and receipt and proof of identity
Or just identity, and gun sellers have a link to the registry to check that you have a permit. In fact, the registry should be updated before they hand you the gun, and the update will fail if the buyer doesn't have a permit.
the black market being seriously empowered
That may happen if enforcement of "no guns in the street" is lacking. In the Netherlands, the police cannot search you unless they suspect you of a crime. But in some places, notably in shopping centers, you are not allowed to carry knives and they may do preemptive searches. I think this method works well. Obviously, when they find a gun, the person is arrested (having a gun with you is a felony). They don't go look for them unless they have a reason to believe there is one.
If the enforcement works, then people will likely want fewer, not more guns, because they have fewer places to use them. So I wouldn't worry about the black market.
this would make suicides less common (as the gun is harder to reach)
I doubt that. If your gun is locked up and you have the key, that doesn't really count as "hard to reach" in my book.
people would be less likely to be shot by a break-in because they might not have as easy a time getting to the gun to make the other person scared enough to shoot them.
People who want a gun in their house to protect themselves will make sure that they keep it in a place where they can get to it if there is a break-in. So I don't think this will be any different either.
teens would be less likely to go rob some place if the gun was locked up
Possibly, but I don't think so either. Teens are very inventive and I expect them to know better than their parents how to open that lock.
well except for the more resourceful ones, who could come up with some interesting things
If you mean intelligence as resource, I would agree; I don't think they need much money in most cases.
