He's just trying to come up with excuses for why it's too difficult to do anything about gun control in America.

Which is why it's silly to treat them the same.

Yeah, because when a gun senses it has entered onto the landmass that we call "America", it starts acting differently.

I think it's the implication that the surrounding countries of the US are a factor in how necessary guns are.

However, the US's distribution of guns is in fact a liability to Canada due to the ease and access that the US provides to criminals both in the US and Canada. So that leaves the Southern border of the US to be examined.

Interesting to note too is that the US is the world's largest exporter of arms, so in fact the proliferation of guns in the US is very good for whoever is involved in the industry.

Actually the evidence suggests that it is the very easy purchase of guns in America that result in them being smuggled into Mexico, where they are used in crime:

http://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/criminal-justice/firearms-trafficking-u-s-mexico-border

Kind of ironic that the big 'war on drugs' and the big problem with drug violence in Mexico is largely fueled by America's own domestic policies.

You know it's bad when you haven't finished debating one shooting when you're interrupted mid-way by another shooting!

538 has done an expose on gun violence in America. Here's the landing page, click on the Menu on the left to access the other articles: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/

What is clear is that mass shootings are only a tiny fraction of all gun deaths in America each year, so Cecil's obsession with them is rather missing the forest for the trees.

The article on Mass Shootings suggests that there isn't much in the way of solid evidence to support Australia or the UK's gun control policies as being the driving force for why they have fewer mass shootings: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths-mass-shootings/

I'm honestly amazed maybe it's just my increased awareness of these issues now or perhaps it's coincidence but in the span of this conversation on SEN we've now had a total of 3 high publicity shootings, Orlando, Dallas and now Nice in France.

Though this time it seems YET AGAIN we've got some religious motivation as the cause... Honestly I'm not sure which is worse the religion issue or the gun ownership issue at this point. I mean even without a gun he would have killed a bunch of people just by plowing his car into the crowd. Eighty is a staggeringly high number though, I guess we'll have to wait and see how many was due to the gun and how many were from the car...

Anyone else got any input?

Well, even if he was on a watch list, had no gun, wasn't allowed to drive, or any other regulations he probably could have still killed a lot of people. He could make a bomb or just start knifing people in the street.

Are we ever going to move away from "well they could still killed a lot of people without a gun"? It's a hypothetical of the utmost absurdity. They could have done a lot of things and both non-realities would have either reduced the possibility (bomb-making being a skill that needs to be practised to be effective) or reduced the casualties (fewer victims, victims with less severe wounds).

Guns in general put an extremely simple and effective killing method in people's hands. Even someone who has never held a gun could read all of 2 pages of text (if not less) and know the general skills needed to empty one magazine into a person or crowd. There isn't a particular strength requirement as stringent as knives either since that would depend a lot on overpowering somebody.

Yep, purely hypothetical and totally absurd -- would never happen. No bombs either.

There's no point in arguing with people who do not like guns, regardless of what they say regarding how they feel about them. Have been arguing the same points using facts, citing sources, and just a reasonable argument.

People outside the US tell US citizens how they should handle their gun control. No matter what you do, the majority of gun owners see legislation against guns as another step against their rights given to them by the founders of the country. And they are right, because every country in the world that has moved to make their entire population register weapons, soon after went and confiscated guns right afterwards. Not highly illegal or dangerous ones, just to take them from citizens they feel shouldn't have them. No reason, no background, just a look at where they live, their income, and denominations. Now you can keep preaching about how "well my country" but guess what, we are not you. We have been established longer than you. We have less people to enforce this by almost a third, not to mention that our country is currently against police because of how the media has been portraying them for decades. Not to mention even our president places blame on the police officers before an official investigation is even done, and when it comes to light that everything was done correctly, it's too late.

Who is going to enforce these laws that you want our country to have? The guys who are being persecuted for doing their job to the best of their ability? Or how about our military, who when they step foot into any domestic event, other countries see it as a move towards military control of the country? Do you guys know anything outside of your own circles or do you just sit their, watching the news that is biased towards your viewpoints?

Cecil has done nothing but make reasoned arguments and you guys come back with, "Well, that doesn't solve the issue that you guys have shit gun control."

The point he and I have made, is that you can literally ban guns. Then the guy bombs people. What then? Tell Walmart they cannot sell household goods anymore? Guess what, that's already being done with pseudoephedrine and people still manage to get it in sufficient quantity to make methamphetamine. Or hey, you know how it was illegal to get military weapons back in the 1920s? And they were only accessible through armories? Criminals were still able to get them and they were more controlled back then than pistols are today.

Have you ever fought someone with a knife? Ever been in a situation where someone had a knife? Nobody is eager to go and disarm someone with any kind of weapon and if they have the right mindset, which let's face it they are willing to pull a knife onto a crowd, they can do damage. It's not just about overpowering someone with a knife, they have something that can inflict pain and a response from your subconscious to avoid getting hurt with that again. Having a gun drawn on you and the distress from getting cut with a knife have the same effect on the brain, you know both are dangerous from that point forward. This is something that is taught in not only the military, but law enforcement and private security. You never want to get into a close confrontation where someone has a weapon, avoid it entirely, because even with proper training you should never introduce yourself into a situation with unknown factors. That is why police will often shoot suspects at the slightest hint of seeing a weapon. People might disagree with this method... I would rather have living police officers and a dead suspect that resisted arrest than a dead police officer and a murderer. Any day.


Not going to touch on this topic anymore because I have argued with friends, family, and strangers on many occasions on why it's not a simple thing we can work towards. It's just not an argument that I have ever witness causing either side to change their view or stance. There are so many other things we should be focused on, but let's narrow down guns when most of the people who own them have never even shot at a living thing in their lives. They own them out of pure recreation and that's just how the United States is. The US would not even have the ability to enforce strict gun laws if they were passed and background checks don't work when somebody has a clean background. Psych evaluations do not work if you are not being honest and in some cases, not at all. Every argument I have heard would not work in these extreme cases everyone talks about where there was a shooting. Though you do know what works? An armed civilian shooting the assailant, to which more have died from than the mass shootings that have succeeded.

Not only that, but say the US bans all guns for civilian use, forever. Think about what happens immediately after. Suddenly all guns become illegal to own, so all citizens must dispose of them, perhaps through a government supported disposal service. This is fine. What problems can arise?

• Some citizens will resist gun relinquishment. Many citizens, especially Texans, will just outright fight to the death to defend their constitutional right.
  
• What does the US's constitution even mean anymore? The value of the constitution was the inability to remove content. Suddenly there is not value to the cornerstone of the US's existence. Something must replace it -- what is that something?
  
• Organized crime involving gun trafficking will sky rocket to the moon. We all know what happened when the US employed prohibition on alcohol in the 20's. The exact same massive underground movement will arise to meet the demand of criminal activities involving guns. This is just common sense, and was a compelling argument in recent debates revolving the legalization of marijuana in the US -- a legalization will destroy nearly all marijuana trafficking. Sure, many of these criminals will just change their business model to make profit by other means, but still. It's potentially a positive thing to disrupt organized crime. This was the argument for *legalizing* something previously illegal. It's a tried and true theorem: if something in high demand becomes illegal, demand will sky rocket. Cuban cigars are another classic example.

Now this list is totally just off the top of my head. If we sat down to discuss more there will be enough problems to keep us up until the cows come home. Almost all of these problems have to do with geography. The more land and people you have the more locations/resources/demand for illegal gun manufacturers to reside and do business. If the US were as tiny as New Zealand massive illegal gun manufacturing will surely be orders of magnitude simpler to deal with; there will be less demand and less resources to profitably meet that demand. And before I get a response of "well the demand will scale down proportionally with the size of the country, and geography is irrelevant"... I will not respond to this kind of comment. Demand and economics are a *bit* more complicated than linear relations. This means claiming "Sweden does it" or "New Zealand" does it is just a load of nonsense, and not a valid argument.

Geography also matters in terms of gun distribution. Will gun import from Mexico become a problem? Will overseas gun imports become a problem? Yes, these can absolutely become problems. The US makes tons of money exporting guns. Oh look, now organized crime will have to meet the demand of exporting guns to other countries as well! (Wait, did he just say import and export? Aren't they opposites and thus his point is meaningless? No, that's what organized crime generally does. Imports and exports. These both make profit.) There will be adverse effects in every direction we look, and all of them have to do with demand and geography. Geography determines resources, population, culture, distribution, pretty much everything related to organized crime.

Here's another example: If guns suddenly are illegal to own then steel will suddenly become more expensive in the US. Why? Organized crime will need lots of steel to manufacture weapons. Steel will raise in value globally. What adverse effects will this have? It's ridiculous to pidgeonhole this complicated topic by pointing to random European countries that have little to no similarities to the US in all matters relevant to guns.

These are the kinds of points I was hoping someone else in this thread would consider and address, like Lanthanide, but unfortunately I had to explicitly outline them myself.

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Jul 15 2016, 11:24 pm by CecilSunkure.

You mean, lets implement a more strict ban on guns than any other 1st world country in the world?

Implement a policy that no one is seriously suggesting?

Nice straw man.

It's only a straw man if I stated or implied you said it. It's only a hypothetical "what if". Whenever we want to understand "what if"'s it's often best to consider the common case and the edge cases. I'm merely fleshing out the extreme. Certainly any new regulation will fall along the spectrum of banning all guns to what the US has now. This includes any magical and nebulous proposed slow changes that don't have clear definitions.

Straw man fallacy is a method to covertly imply a defeat of the enemy's argument. I explicitly said "say ..." as in "let's imagine". That's not an implication. It's obvious. I hate to say it, but the only straw man fallacies I've seen in this thread are the three claims to straw man fallacies. By claiming I've commit a straw man is incorrect and implies a defeat of my argument, thus a straw man itself.

As long as I don't clearly state any actionable proposals I can call anything I don't like a straw man.

So far the only actionable proposal you've brought up is to throw money at the problem.

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Jul 16 2016, 3:04 am by CecilSunkure.

Oh, sorry, so rather than being "a straw man argument", it was in fact, a completely off-topic waste of time.

Go read the wikipedia page on Straw man argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man


No, it is why I'm not bothering to engage with any of your hypotheticals, because they're irrelevant to productive conversation. I'm not implying I've "defeated" your argument, I'm saying your "argument" is irrelevant.

I guess you missed the bit where I suggested that America institute a law that guns be locked up in gun safes, as is done in New Zealand.

And the other bit where I suggest you start gradually changing your culture.

You know, decriminalising drugs would get rid of a lot of 'criminals' who have guns for their own self defence / used to rob others. That's part of changing the culture in the US, which then makes it easier to increase gun control measures.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 16 2016, 12:56 am by Lanthanide.

Just asking, so we should legalize coke and meth?

Decriminalise != legalise. That's why I said decriminalise and not legalise.

Yes, that would be for the better. The criminalization of drugs brings about apparent issues that would also arise from the criminalization of owning firearms. Legalization and regulation are the path to take. (As an aside, Lanthanide is talking about decriminalization, not legalization.)

Fortunately the stigma around guns isn't as fierce as the one against hard drugs, though.

Edit: ninja'd.

Serious question: what is the difference between decriminalization and legalization? They do sound, at least at first glance, mutually exclusive.