Err well I'd rather the right to bear arms against a possibly corrupt system, rather no firearms against an almost perfect system.

Why do you guys have such a hard on for guns anyway?

^ Some psychological complexes perhaps, who knows.

I didn't bother reading the whole 106-post long thread, but I did read the op, and i'd like to point out that more restrictive gun laws don't necessarily equal less gun deaths.

He makes the point that america has 33,000 gun-related deaths per year, but this is misleading; As you can see here, america only has the 12th highest rate of gun violence in the world:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQY3YgVWIAAtjoX.jpg:large

Using the same logic OP used, Honduras has around 5200 gun deaths per year, so the Restrictive gun laws in the country must not be working, yes? If Honduras used the same liberal gun laws the US does, we can extrapolate that they have an unnecessary 4300 gun deaths per year, and all because of those darn restrictive gun laws they have.

I'm sure you can see the problem with this logic.

Of the other nations, ie Brazil, Mexico, Jamaica, South Africa etc all have more restrictive gun laws than the US. In fact, it seems almost every country has more restrictive gun laws than the US, and there are still quite a few with more violence than us.

If anything, there seems to be a trend of higher gun violence in the Americas, as almost all of the nations with a 10 or higher death rate(with the notable exceptions of Swaziland and south africa) are american countries.

im trying to find any relevant info on this, but i can tell you with some amount of confidence that honduras probably has a tougher time enforcing their gun laws than the US does. i would say the same about the rest of those countries, but im not as confident.

these are just my assumptions (not facts!) based on news i read about the scope of criminality and corruption in some of those countries. please please disagree and find me some good links on it.

EDIT:

here's a start: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/brazil



i picked brazil as an example because it is one of the more developed nations with high gun deaths.

Edited 11/20/2015 19:59:59

IMO that diea that they havea harder time enforcing their laws probably comes from various stereotypes a lot of americans have about Latin american/African countries being much less developed than the USA.

EDIT: From that same page:

The regulation of guns in Brazil is categorised as restrictive

Logically if Gun laws are more restrictive than More guns will be smuggled in, so it's not really relevant how amny guns get smuggled in.

Edited 11/20/2015 20:13:00

Logically if Gun laws are more restrictive than More guns will be smuggled in.

very true, i didn't consider that.

im trying to find more pertinent info, but im having a hard time. im really not trying to stereotype those countries, but i do read in the news a lot about violent drug cartels in latin america that are stronger than police forces or have the ability to buy them off. we have a similar problem in the inner cities of the US. those issues need to be tackled before there can be any significant reduction of gun deaths. gun regulation is just a tool to help with that problem, but i don't think any serious person assumes it is a magic elixir. i don't think gun regulation should just be pushed out of discussion because it won't completely solve our problems. i think it can help and we should be doing whatever we can to lower the amount of people getting killed.

IMO that diea that they havea harder time enforcing their laws probably comes from various stereotypes a lot of americans have about Latin american/African countries being much less developed than the USA.

It's not a stereotype, they really are much less developed, partially since American influence, present or past. In living standard measures, Canada is a tier-9 country (best tier is 10), America is a tier-8 country, and from Mexico, it gets much worse. Mexico: tier-4 (America doesn't have massive, very problematic border fans giving drugs to Canada), Brazil: tier-5, Honduras: tier-1, Guatemala: tier-1, Cuba: tier-2, Venezuela: tier-4.

I'm gonna ask a sub-question to this. You can debate the validity of the question if you want. And note this only applies to the US in relation to guns.

Second amendment was written into the constitution when it was formed and ratified in 1791. Now, we all know that the second amendment was meant to allow citizens to protect themselves, their state, and their nation from government overreach or abridgment of their god-given rights. It was not meant as a hunting amendment. It was meant as a permanent and powerful check on the entire system of federal government by the citizens. That being said I want to know what has changed (last 200 years of history) that has made the necessity of an absolute check on government unnecessary?

You see I think of it like this (again in the US context): If you are advocating for the eradication of private ownership of guns aren't you effectively saying that citizens don't need to protect themselves from the federal government? If that is the case then we are essentially saying that government is and always is correct and will never harm the rights of their citizens. That is a theoretical utopian world.

I'm not really sure where you got those numbers from, but here's a map of the world by Human Development Index:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2014_UN_Human_Development_Report_Quartiles.svg

The USA actually has a higher HDI than canada, USA is 0.914 and Canada is 0.902. and btw Cuba has 0.815.

Mexico has an HDI of 0.756, Brazil 0.744, venezuela 0.764, colombia 0.711, Jamaica 0.715, And Panama 0.765. It's a difference between "High" and "Very High" for these countries and the US. Not exactly what i'd call "Much Less Developed".

Now Granted, Honduras is only 0.617, Swaziland 0.530, Guatemala 0.628, but these are more exceptions than rules tbh.

Edited 11/21/2015 00:17:57

I'm not really sure where you got those numbers from, but here's a map of the world by Human Development Index:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2014_UN_Human_Development_Report_Quartiles.svg

The USA actually has a higher HDI than canada, USA is 0.914 and Canada is 0.902. and btw Cuba has 0.815.

Mexico has an HDI of 0.756, Brazil 0.744, venezuela 0.764, colombia 0.711, Jamaica 0.715, And Panama 0.765. It's a difference between "High" and "Very High" for these countries and the US. Not exactly what i'd call "Much Less Developed".

Now Granted, Honduras is only 0.617, Swaziland 0.530, Guatemala 0.628, but these are more exceptions than rules tbh.

1, HDI =/ Tiers, 2, bit of its data comes from the UN education index, which puts America at 5th best place? I'm not really a fan of the HDI measurements, it's flawed in my opinion, I much prefer tiers, which are not perfect, and harder to develop, but are much better.

I'm still not sure exactly where these "Tiers" come from. It kind of seems like you're just making them up yourself tbh, but whatever your source, I kind of doubt it's more reliable than the UN.

If you are advocating for the eradication of private ownership of guns aren't you effectively saying that citizens don't need to protect themselves from the federal government?

I literally don't know of anyone I can think of who advocates "for the eradication of private ownership of guns" (maybe they exist, but I can't think of any). This is known as a Straw Man fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man).

The argument is for more sensible gun restrictions, not outright abolishment.

Several people on this thread have made the same fundamental error in thinking.

Why do you guys have such a hard on for guns anyway?

I actually think guns are really awesome in concept. I have done some small amount of target shooting a few years ago. When I was a kid I was jealous of other kids who had BB guns. When I was a teen I got a basic bow and some practice arrows since there was no chance my parents would let me get anything like a gun.

As a sporting thing, I think it's perfectly fine and cool. As a hunting thing, I can see the utility, though I think most hunters are not really doing it out of necessity, which I think sucks, since I like animals. For national defense, policing, and peace keeping missions they are a necessary evil. For movies, I fuckin' love them.

But as a personal protection thing, reality says that it's a stupid idea and causes more harm than it helps with protection. Accidents, guns being stolen and misused, guns for 'protection' being captured and used against the owner, etc. This only makes sense if there are strong restrictions on ownership, storage, and usage. Like Canada and many other nations, and unlike the US.

Very much like health care, this is just one of those issues that the US public is several decades behind the rest of the world, and they stubbornly stay there, thinking it's better that way, when they are simply factually wrong. Chalk it up to dogmatic ignorance, like many other of the US's self-inflicted problems.

Edited 11/21/2015 05:54:45

For those you who claim that guns will just get smuggled in, I point to Japan as an example of a counter. States with the capacity to enforce gun laws will indeed have fewer gun-related deaths, the US could have trouble with such an idea, but rather than going after drugs, we could go after guns.

Within the US, states with more restrictive guns laws have fewer gun related deaths by per capita and overall(California vs Texas for instance)

Generally the US public is just ignorant, uniformed, or non-voting, as those with enough intelligence realize that whatever they try to do, corporate lobbyists are going to stop. Henceforth, if we just create a government that reduces the power of lobbyists, I think the US would be better off. Health care(Insurance Companies) has its lobbyists, same applies to guns(NRA, gun Manufacturers), and pretty much every interest group in the nation. When Fusion energy is advanced to the point it can be used, I expect Oil and Coal groups to try to make it seem terrible if not unconstitutional.

I argue that we should limit guns available to people to hunting guns, as all other forms lack sense(what on earth is a guy going to do with a armor-piercing ammo other than kill someone). Secondly, you can defend your home with a hunting gun, and all those home-defense advocates should note that 75% of shootings in the US are accidental, as such we clearly have too many guns.

The argument is for more sensible gun restrictions, not outright abolishment.

This discussion should be closed then. Pretty much everyone here agrees that there should be improved gun laws, owners should take safety courses, training, etc.

The entire argument has been over whether privately owned guns should be banned completely or not.

,he US could have trouble with such an idea, but rather than going after drugs, we could go after guns.

Anti-Gun advocate: "We should ban guns, they are harmful for society!"

Pro-Gun advocate: "It's a waste of time, banning things doesn't work."

Now look at debates about drugs.....

Anti-Drug advocate: "We should ban drugs, they are harmful for society!"

Pro-Drug advocate: "It's a waste of time, banning things doesn't work."

The hilarious irony is that Right-wing people tend to be Pro-Gun but anti-drug, while left-wingers are the reverse.

Both sides use the other's logic depending on the issue. The double standards are astonishing.

Guns are necessary if we want to get rid of the Arabs! Free Israel!

dunno about the rest, but i never said guns should be entirely banned, eklipse. stop panicking and listening to the fearmongering. think rationally. :P

personally, i would want to keep the guns out of the hands of suspected criminals, and lunatics. is that so much to ask? ofc it would be nice to keep more George Zimmermans from happening too, but it is the mentally unstable, and the criminals, the terrorists, that are the biggest danger and need to be dealt with first.

I'm not really a fan of the HDI measurements

What about now?