Gun control in the U.S. is working... we need to push for more gun control

[rudder]

Where is Rwanda on that list? Where is Somalia?

Having more access to firearms does not cause people in this country to become violent and kill each other. If you want to prohibit all legal firearms and be at the mercy of criminals... be my guest. It is rather silly to show a chart comparing the United States to a bunch of European countries. When I was in Germany I was amazed at the fact that people could bike up to a grocery store, not lock their bike, and have it still sitting there when they were done shopping. Craziness I tell you. No way in hell that I would bike to the local kroger store and leave my bike outside... and I live in a very low crime area that has seen one murder in the last 6 years.

 

[nick1985]

Thats odd. My sources say our overall homocide is lower than what your source says for firearm homocides.

Fact: The top 10 countries for homicide do not include the U.S.69

69 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention, Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 – 2000.

*Edit*

Since your graph says "intentional firearm deaths", that does not mean its just homocides. I believe your graph may be taking into account suicides.

"suicides make up more than ½ of all gun deaths"

http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/5.1/gun-facts-5.1-screen.pdf

Subtract all the suicides from your graph and it would be right in line with all of those other nations.

Busted. Try again.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

In college I had a friend whose coworker got shot in the head and killed during a robbery so he could not be a witness.

I was robbed, hog-tied and blindfolded while two guys argued about whether they should kill me or not. Just a hunch...but I don't think they had gun permits.

 

[highland145]

I was robbed, hog-tied and blindfolded while two guys argued about whether they should kill me or not. Just a hunch...but I don't think they had gun permits.

The gun was the permit. Have gun=permitted to do....

 

[CLite]

Holy overreaction batman. You folks clearly didn't read what I said. I respect the right to carry in Texas and other locations where not many people take advantage of it and it's not a situation where every single person is carrying in a city. The reason I brought up my scenario is for when people like spidey say that if every victim in the U.K. shooting had a gun everything would of been hunky dory.

My example is if NYC had 80% gun carry rates then it would be a disaster. Criminals would much more easily blend in with crowds of gun totting individuals and the cops would have no reasonable ability to distinguish between law abiding gun carries and non-law abiding. A place like NYC with heavy crowds that can sometimes spark random violent encounters, especially at night, would experience massive escalation.

There is a time and place for gun carrying, NYC is not such a place if you want an example of every single person carrying a gun.

The graphs you folks link are all reasonably limited concealed carry states, you aren't seeing 80% carry rates and I think typically you barely see it at all in a crowded city. The reason for this is a reasonable social stigma with the need to carry a gun in such crowded conditions. There is really no difference in Texas carry rates versus New York, perhaps a few %. What you don't have charts of are places with 80% carry rates (i.e. Africa). If you link me information showing Texas has more than a 5% carry rate I'd be absolutely shocked.

 

[umbrella39]

I was robbed, hog-tied and blindfolded while two guys argued about whether they should kill me or not. Just a hunch...but I don't think they had gun permits.

Was there a banjo playing off in the distance and some talk of pigs?

 

[sandorski]

Like anything, there are tipping points between Increased Gun Crimes and Decreased Gun Crimes. Once a certain level of Gun Possession is reached, Increasing Gun Possession has little to no affect on Gun Crime.

 

[MrEgo]

As gun ownership and CCW permits increase sure I would hope. Thugs go for the easy mark. In college I had a friend whose coworker got shot in the head and killed during a robbery so he could not be a witness. Most robberies do not end with someone getting shot though. One would think a thug would shit their pants when they break into a home and see the homeowner pointing a gun at their head.

Anyway this was in reference to someone else saying that there is never any gunfire in the ghetto because everyone is armed or something to that effect.

I guess I don't understand what the difference is. Why would he not fear another armed thug, yet he would fear an armed yuppie?

The person that made a reference to the ghetto had a fair point even though he was being sarcastic - the point being is that many people in the ghetto are packing heat, yet the majority of violent crimes come from those same lower-income neighborhoods.

 

[nick1985]

Holy overreaction batman. You folks clearly didn't read what I said. I respect the right to carry in Texas and other locations where not many people take advantage of it and it's not a situation where every single person is carrying in a city. The reason I brought up my scenario is for when people like spidey say that if every victim in the U.K. shooting had a gun everything would of been hunky dory.

My example is if NYC had 80% gun carry rates then it would be a disaster. Criminals would much more easily blend in with crowds of gun totting individuals and the cops would have no reasonable ability to distinguish between law abiding gun carries and non-law abiding. A place like NYC with heavy crowds that can sometimes spark random violent encounters, especially at night, would experience massive escalation.

There is a time and place for gun carrying, NYC is not such a place if you want an example of every single person carrying a gun.

The graphs you folks link are all reasonably limited concealed carry states, you aren't seeing 80% carry rates and I think typically you barely see it at all in a crowded city. The reason for this is a reasonable social stigma with the need to carry a gun in such crowded conditions. There is really no difference in Texas carry rates versus New York, perhaps a few %. What you don't have charts of are places with 80% carry rates (i.e. Africa). If you link me information showing Texas has more than a 5% carry rate I'd be absolutely shocked.

Except there are dozens and dozens of very large cities where people carry, yet the OK-Corral, wild wild west situations that you describe dont happen.

Again, its a nice little theory you have, but the facts point to the contrary

 

[CLite]

Except there are dozens and dozens of very large cities where people carry, yet the OK-Corral, wild wild west situations that you describe dont happen.

Again, its a nice little theory you have, but the facts point to the contrary

Name a single city with more than 2% carry rate, please provide a source. I will again re-iterate my concern is the idea of an entire populace armed, which would be 80%. However, I'm fairly confident not a single city even exceeds 2%.

You haven't linked any facts regarding carry rate percentage and this is the 2nd time I've asked you to.

 

[rudder]

I guess I don't understand what the difference is. Why would he not fear another armed thug, yet he would fear an armed yuppie?

The person that made a reference to the ghetto had a fair point even though he was being sarcastic - the point being is that many people in the ghetto are packing heat, yet the majority of violent crimes come from those same lower-income neighborhoods.

There is more involved in ghetto violence... drugs and money. Show me a ghetto that is not infected with gangs and I might agree with you. Kind of like M.A.D. on a smaller scale. A thug shoots another thug in a ghetto and likely he will set in motion more violence in the form of reprisals. He can walk through the ghetto confidently knowing if someone shoots at him, he can get his homeys and shoot back.

I doubt any of the parties involved are toting a registered firearm. Imagine if you would be able to have the police come in and completely comb the area and remove all firearms. Then they put up a gate with x-ray machines and managed to control all entrances and managed to keep firearms out of the ghettos. Do you think those drug territories would just disappear? Do you think that drug lords would give up access to all that drug money? No they would find some other type of weapon. The number of guns in the ghetto is not the cause of the violence.

 

[nick1985]

Name a single city with more than 2% carry rate, please provide a source. I will again re-iterate my concern is the idea of an entire populace armed, which would be 80%. However, I'm fairly confident not a single city even exceeds 2%.

You haven't linked any facts regarding carry rate percentage and this is the 2nd time I've asked you to.

I dont know what cities have more than 2%, but thats not the point. The point is people should have a fundamental right to carry if they wish. They should have the right to defend their livelihood. So your demands for % of people who carry in certain states and cities is moot. The point is squelching people's right to carry is not doing anything but enabling criminals.

 

[MrEgo]

There is more involved in ghetto violence... drugs and money. Show me a ghetto that is not infected with gangs and I might agree with you. Kind of like M.A.D. on a smaller scale. A thug shoots another thug in a ghetto and likely he will set in motion more violence in the form of reprisals. He can walk through the ghetto confidently knowing if someone shoots at him, he can get his homeys and shoot back.

I doubt any of the parties involved are toting a registered firearm. Imagine if you would be able to have the police come in and completely comb the area and remove all firearms. Then they put up a gate with x-ray machines and managed to control all entrances and managed to keep firearms out of the ghettos. Do you think those drug territories would just disappear? Do you think that drug lords would give up access to all that drug money? No they would find some other type of weapon. The number of guns in the ghetto is not the cause of the violence.

I completely agree, but I also think that throwing more guns at the problem is not going to help matters at all. I don't think the number of guns in the community is going to make a difference - good or bad. Drug infested neighborhoods are going to be drug infested neighborhoods regardless of how many guns there are.

What I got out of your original post is that if more people pack heat, the safer the community will be.

 

[CLite]

I dont know what cities have more than 2%, but thats not the point. The point is people should have a fundamental right to carry if they wish. They should have the right to defend their livelihood. So your demands for % of people who carry in certain states and cities is moot. The point is squelching people's right to carry is not doing anything but enabling criminals.

The difference between 0 and 2-5 carry rates makes no difference to me. Out of all the linked data from both sides of the fence I've never seen anything statistically relevent. I personally don't care if a few people that need to jump through a few hurdles happen to carry.

What I do care about is keeping open carry as a relatively rare thing, because there is almost certainly a threshold where if you have significant amount of the population carrying then mistakes can start snowballing easily and you would see an OK-corral kind of society.

 

[irishScott]

The difference between 0 and 2-5 carry rates makes no difference to me. Out of all the linked data from both sides of the fence I've never seen anything statistically relevent. I personally don't care if a few people that need to jump through a few hurdles happen to carry.

What I do care about is keeping open carry as a relatively rare thing, because there is almost certainly a threshold where if you have significant amount of the population carrying then mistakes can start snowballing easily and you would see an OK-corral kind of society.

Fine, but the issue is why it's a rare thing. In most places it's not simply because it's unnecessary, but because of the unfair social stigma that comes with it. I walk into a restaurant, once with a full sized glock safely holstered at my side, once without. I'm going to get vastly different reactions, and in the former case they will probably be negative. I actually recall a couple of restaurants in Virginia that expelled a couple of guys who were carrying openly because some customers complained. These guys weren't doing anything other than exercising their rights. That shouldn't happen.

As long as that sheeple social stigma remains at the levels it's currently at, we need looser gun regulation to counteract it. In an ideal world we would require mandatory government-provided training to own a certain class of firearm, but since guns scare people more than cars (for some reason) the slippery slope is all too real.

 

[MJinZ]

Fine, but the issue is why it's a rare thing. In most places it's not simply because it's unnecessary, but because of the unfair social stigma that comes with it. I walk into a restaurant, once with a full sized glock safely holstered at my side, once without. I'm going to get vastly different reactions, and in the former case they will probably be negative. I actually recall a couple of restaurants in Virginia that expelled a couple of guys who were carrying openly because some customers complained. These guys weren't doing anything other than exercising their rights. That shouldn't happen.

As long as that sheeple social stigma remains at the levels it's currently at, we need looser gun regulation to counteract it. In an ideal world we would require mandatory government-provided training to own a certain class of firearm, but since guns scare people more than cars (for some reason) the slippery slope is all too real.

You have fewer rights.

On private properties.

 

[irishScott]

You have fewer rights.

On private properties.

Yes. Note I said it shouldn't happen. Not "shouldn't be allowed to happen". Two different things. I'm all for the restaurant's right to refuse service. The problem is this stupid protectionist culture a lot of places have got going.

 

[nick1985]

The difference between 0 and 2-5 carry rates makes no difference to me. Out of all the linked data from both sides of the fence I've never seen anything statistically relevent. I personally don't care if a few people that need to jump through a few hurdles happen to carry.

What I do care about is keeping open carry as a relatively rare thing, because there is almost certainly a threshold where if you have significant amount of the population carrying then mistakes can start snowballing easily and you would see an OK-corral kind of society.

When I refer to CCW, I am referring to concealed carry weapon.

 

[CLite]

Fine, but the issue is why it's a rare thing. In most places it's not simply because it's unnecessary, but because of the unfair social stigma that comes with it. I walk into a restaurant, once with a full sized glock safely holstered at my side, once without. I'm going to get vastly different reactions, and in the former case they will probably be negative. I actually recall a couple of restaurants in Virginia that expelled a couple of guys who were carrying openly because some customers complained. These guys weren't doing anything other than exercising their rights. That shouldn't happen.

As long as that sheeple social stigma remains at the levels it's currently at, we need looser gun regulation to counteract it. In an ideal world we would require mandatory government-provided training to own a certain class of firearm, but since guns scare people more than cars (for some reason) the slippery slope is all too real.

I can understand that position but I still think even with proper training that "mob mentality" is usually one step above retardness. When you start reaching "mob" levels of fire arm carry (concealed or not), I would be worried to step into NYC, training or no training.

It's a rather mute point at this stage, and based on the gun control gridlock it's probably a mute point for decades to come. However, I laugh when I read the answer to our crime being every single law abiding citizen *carrying* a gun.

*edit* meant carry not own

 

[Darwin333]

Holy overreaction batman. You folks clearly didn't read what I said. I respect the right to carry in Texas and other locations where not many people take advantage of it and it's not a situation where every single person is carrying in a city. The reason I brought up my scenario is for when people like spidey say that if every victim in the U.K. shooting had a gun everything would of been hunky dory.

My example is if NYC had 80% gun carry rates then it would be a disaster. Criminals would much more easily blend in with crowds of gun totting individuals and the cops would have no reasonable ability to distinguish between law abiding gun carries and non-law abiding. A place like NYC with heavy crowds that can sometimes spark random violent encounters, especially at night, would experience massive escalation.

There is a time and place for gun carrying, NYC is not such a place if you want an example of every single person carrying a gun.

The graphs you folks link are all reasonably limited concealed carry states, you aren't seeing 80% carry rates and I think typically you barely see it at all in a crowded city. The reason for this is a reasonable social stigma with the need to carry a gun in such crowded conditions. There is really no difference in Texas carry rates versus New York, perhaps a few %. What you don't have charts of are places with 80% carry rates (i.e. Africa). If you link me information showing Texas has more than a 5% carry rate I'd be absolutely shocked.

That many people carry a concealed weapon in todays society in the United States would require a mandate of some sort requiring people to carry a weapon. I am not aware of even the strongest gun activists advocating (or willing to advocate) anything close to that. You should be just as free to NOT own a gun as you are TO own a gun. Having personally lived through a major SHTF scenario and a few minor ones, I truly appreciate the people who strongly object to guns and therefore don't own any. It gives the thugs plenty of easy targets (they rarely messed with anyone visibly carrying and more often than not backed off quick once they found out you were armed) and order was restored before they ran out of easy targets. I would almost certainly would have had a tougher time had everyone been armed because they wouldn't have any other options.

Hell, I saw 6 thugs with handguns about to break into a guys house when he came around the side with a double barrel shotgun. You woulda thought the guy had an entire brigade of infantrymen they ran so fast. It makes perfect sense, why in the world would you risk getting shot taking an armed persons stuff when there are all kinds of unarmed people with stuff you can take that pose no threat.

 

[PJABBER]

Interesting back and forth in this thread.

I believe that any infringement of the Consitutional right of an individual to bear arms is, well, unconstitutional.

Arguments that residents of cities, usually at risk from drug related crime and robbery, should be treated differently than other, more rural, places discriminates against individual rights based on choice of residence.

The following article is a very good read. It was published in a lefty paper and has that skew but it shows just how much the progressives are willing to sacrifice to stop people from being able to protect themselves.

The setting is Washington, DC...

Sacrificing the vote for the chance to keep guns out of citizens' hands

 

[PrinceofWands]

Nick, is your position that gun control laws have no correlation to violent crime rates?

It is the position of the National Academy of Sciences that no form of gun control has had a verifiable positive impact upon crime. While the acknowledge certain correlations in gun studies they find no concrete evidence of a causal relationship, and contradictory studies which call into question the gun itself as the correlative factor.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Holy overreaction batman. You folks clearly didn't read what I said. I respect the right to carry in Texas and other locations where not many people take advantage of it and it's not a situation where every single person is carrying in a city. The reason I brought up my scenario is for when people like spidey say that if every victim in the U.K. shooting had a gun everything would of been hunky dory.

My example is if NYC had 80% gun carry rates then it would be a disaster. Criminals would much more easily blend in with crowds of gun totting individuals and the cops would have no reasonable ability to distinguish between law abiding gun carries and non-law abiding. A place like NYC with heavy crowds that can sometimes spark random violent encounters, especially at night, would experience massive escalation.

There is a time and place for gun carrying, NYC is not such a place if you want an example of every single person carrying a gun.

The graphs you folks link are all reasonably limited concealed carry states, you aren't seeing 80% carry rates and I think typically you barely see it at all in a crowded city. The reason for this is a reasonable social stigma with the need to carry a gun in such crowded conditions. There is really no difference in Texas carry rates versus New York, perhaps a few %. What you don't have charts of are places with 80% carry rates (i.e. Africa). If you link me information showing Texas has more than a 5% carry rate I'd be absolutely shocked.

The highest carry rates barely push 8%. The national average is at about 4% right now. Part of that is systemic. It's a hassle to get permits in many states (time, costs, etc). Another factor is the restrictions on carry, which often render it useless (off limits areas for instance). The other parts of it are social stigma or disagreement with the practice. What we're seeing is, as the barriers to easy and useful carry are reduced or eliminated, the percentage of persons carrying increases dramatically. Even with absolutely no barriers it's unlikely you'd ever see more than perhaps 25% due to stigma and disagreement.

However, we can say fairly certainly that no percentage of people carrying (which we're ever likely to see) is going to significantly increase accidents or negative incidents. Study after study after study supports this.

 

[CLite]

The highest carry rates barely push 8%. The national average is at about 4% right now. Part of that is systemic. It's a hassle to get permits in many states (time, costs, etc). Another factor is the restrictions on carry, which often render it useless (off limits areas for instance). The other parts of it are social stigma or disagreement with the practice. What we're seeing is, as the barriers to easy and useful carry are reduced or eliminated, the percentage of persons carrying increases dramatically. Even with absolutely no barriers it's unlikely you'd ever see more than perhaps 25% due to stigma and disagreement.

However, we can say fairly certainly that no percentage of people carrying (which we're ever likely to see) is going to significantly increase accidents or negative incidents. Study after study after study supports this.

I spent like 10 minutes googling, about the only article I could find was from 1997 showing that in state's with concealed carry only about 2% of the people wanted the permit. You figure beyond that even less people carry it day to day. I would be incredibly shocked if the national average was 4%.

I'm just worried if we opened the flood gates, said there was no restriction, and eliminated any background check waiting times then you would definitely have a flood of weapons and perhaps hit the 25% mark you mention within a few years. I just don't see such an event as being healthy for a society. The only comparable society with such a high carry rate would be Africa. We have no studies in this country that could benchmark 25% carry rate.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Name a single city with more than 2% carry rate, please provide a source. I will again re-iterate my concern is the idea of an entire populace armed, which would be 80%. However, I'm fairly confident not a single city even exceeds 2%.

You haven't linked any facts regarding carry rate percentage and this is the 2nd time I've asked you to.

As far as I know no single city has done such a study, partially because carry is generally tracked at the state level. However:

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/377385_gunpermits02.html

that gives at least one or two county permit numbers. The numbers have continued increasing in Washington. Right now carry is at about 7-8% of eligible persons. We're among the highest in the nation. While it's true that not every place in Washington is a city, the VAST majority of the population (85%) lives in one.