Gun accidents? Guns are dangrous?

[NCAces]

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NCAces, I'll try to answer your accusations.

If you had followed what I wrote in this thread, you'd know that I never claimed that a full ban against guns is feasible in USA. I wrote that I suspect that the conditions under which USA was founded - basically a bunch of Europeans committing genocide and stealing land - has made the Americans the gun loving people you are today.

The settlers took America from the natives with brute force, which was possible mainly because of British muskets. Furthermore, compared to the British, the Americans were a lot more accepting towards change and new technology - which later would make USA the super-power it is today. Following the patent system (of 1790) and other factors, the Americans made several significant improvements to the muskets. Examples are the smoke-less gunpowder and the cone-shaped hollow ammunition. Finally, around the Civil War, Americans invented the rifle (1850s). Meanwhile, Samuel Colt would invent the revolver.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not try to teach history here. I'm sure you can find factual errors in what I wrote (don't disappoint me, pvn!). My point is that significant weapons technology originate in USA, for the most part. It's your creation, and it has been a necessary tool in your creation of liberty and freedom. I live in America, and I've come to understand that the last thing I want to do is to mess with an American's "rights for freedom". Americans have a very unique society and a very unique relationship with weapons.

Because of this, I don't think USA will ever function without guns. To me, that's sad. Your death-by-gun-rates are very high, and I would say it is very likely that they will stay very high.

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Thanks for the history lesson, but as I expected, you still didn't address my points. Nice dodge.

NCAces

[PLOlover]

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Bottom line: your assertion that crime has greatly increased is flat out wrong.

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I amend my statement to assert that crime has displayed a steady and significant increase.

[adios]

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I haven't read every post in this thread so pardon me if this has been discusssed. I did a search and the words "gun control" this thread had quite a few references so I thought I'd put my post here. Anyway the criticism of gun laws in the U.S. in light of the of the VT massacre this week seems to be stating more or less that if guns were removed from the civillian population in the U.S. then we'd see a lot less violent acts perpetrated especially massacre's like the VT one this week. FWIW this seems to be an issue that divides alot of left wing and right wing oriented people with the left wing oriented types wanting guns removed from U.S. civilians. What I don't understand is how the people that support this notion would go about implementing it. I saw a reference somewhere this week that there are over 200,000,000 guns in the U.S. and another one that stated there were over 300,000,000 guns. Let's just stipulate that there are easily over 100,000,000 guns in the U.S. that are owned by civilians. If this threshold number is disputed then maybe the number of guns that are in the possession of U.S. civilians should be discussed to see how big of a problem confiscating the guns is. Anyway with this many guns let's say the U.S. repealed the Second Amendment and/or the Courts came down and stated that guns could be confiscated by the governments in the U.S. Thus an order to turn in all guns came down and criminal penalties for not doing so would be implemented. I think it's fair to say that there are many gun owners that would refuse to comply with such a law. If you doubt this then I think you're naive or being disingenuous. I can't tell you the number of people I have known in my life that own guns that would refuse to do such a thing. If you don't believe this to be the case then we'll just have to agree to disagree about gun owners in the U.S. turning in their guns to the governments of the U.S. willingly. If you do agree with this but believe that the government needs to confiscate all guns from civilians then how do you believe the government should go about doing this? Make strict laws with lots of prison time for owning a gun? Give the police broader powers to search for weapons that exist? Are we saying that people on the left that want guns removed from U.S. civilians want to have strict laws, put more people in prison, grant police more power in conducting searches in order to confiscate guns, etc.? Honestly for those on the left that support removing guns from U.S. civilians, I don't understand how you propose doing this from a logistical point of view? Enlighten me please.

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This seems like a very good question. I hope we will see some attempts to answer it in this thread.

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Apparently the people that want guns removed from U.S. society aren't willing to put more people in prison to do so nor are they willing to grant the police more power in searching for and confiscating guns. Now I can read their complaints and know that they're just whining about the situation.

[ShakeZula06]

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Apparently the people that want guns removed from U.S. society aren't willing to put more people in prison to do so nor are they willing to grant the police more power in searching for and confiscating guns.

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Thank God their not.

[Olof]

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BTW, the gun buyback began in 1997 and took a while to complete - and undoubtedly even longer for supply effects to propagate down to criminal gun ownership and gun culture among youth.


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Criminal use of firearms didn't decrease at all during the first few years:

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A person was more likely to be a victim of a crime where a firearm was used in 2001 than in 1995, with the exception of murder. A firearm was the predominant weapon type for kidnappings/abductions in 2001, and a person was four times more likely to be a victim of a kidnapping/abduction involving a firearm in 2001 than in 1995. However, since 1995 there was a greater increase in the likelihood of being confronted by a weapon other than a firearm for attempted murder (54% increase), assault (67% increase) and robbery (145% increase).

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Link

Also, imprisonment rates seem to have increased (at least between 2001 and 2005), so any decrease/lower increase in crime could just as easily be caused by more criminals being being locked up.