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Poll: Gun Control: Does limiting who can get a gun reduce crime?

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Does gun control work?

  • Yes

  • No

Results are only viewable after voting.
Gun control doesn't stop crimes because it works under the assumption that criminals will follow the law. Handguns are effectively banned in Canada yet they're still the criminal's weapon of choice. As long as smuggling channels are open, crooks will get them.

The big problem with bans though is they don't really address why people get involved in violent behavior in the first place. The problem with politics today is we largely tend to oversimplify things. The issue of violent crime is a very complex one that involved facing some very difficult truths. Society doesn't want to deal with that. Especially since a good chunk of gun violence is committed by African-American gangs. It inevitably ends up becoming racialized to the point where it kills any civilized discussion on the issue. I think we do know the causes and both people on the left and right are partially correct. It is a cultural and it is a socio-economic issue. Though we can argue causes until the cows come home, nobody has offered any viable solutions. Once we get to that point, we sink once again into partisan thinking. It then becomes an endless loop and people continue to get beaten or killed as a result.

So what should we do. I think education is a big part of the solution. Gets kids on track and helps them develop in a safe environment. Though that presents a whole other problem. The one size fits all way we teach kids today doesn't work. The entire system needs to be reformed. Paying teachers more also isn't the ultimate solution as many libs think. I come from a place where teachers get lucrative pay and benefits but the problems are still there. So the system is the problem.
 
mmntech said:
Gun control doesn't stop crimes because it works under the assumption that criminals will follow the law. Handguns are effectively banned in Canada yet they're still the criminal's weapon of choice. As long as smuggling channels are open, crooks will get them.

The big problem with bans though is they don't really address why people get involved in violent behavior in the first place. The problem with politics today is we largely tend to oversimplify things. The issue of violent crime is a very complex one that involved facing some very difficult truths. Society doesn't want to deal with that. Especially since a good chunk of gun violence is committed by African-American gangs. It inevitably ends up becoming racialized to the point where it kills any civilized discussion on the issue. I think we do know the causes and both people on the left and right are partially correct. It is a cultural and it is a socio-economic issue. Though we can argue causes until the cows come home, nobody has offered any viable solutions. Once we get to that point, we sink once again into partisan thinking. It then becomes an endless loop and people continue to get beaten or killed as a result.

So what should we do. I think education is a big part of the solution. Gets kids on track and helps them develop in a safe environment. Though that presents a whole other problem. The one size fits all way we teach kids today doesn't work. The entire system needs to be reformed. Paying teachers more also isn't the ultimate solution as many libs think. I come from a place where teachers get lucrative pay and benefits but the problems are still there. So the system is the problem.
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I agree 100%.

Gun don't kill people any more than spoons make people fat. People make bad choices and this kills people or makes them fat.

The problem is that people who have no value for human life are more than willing to pull a trigger while pointing the gun at someone.

The problem is that kids are being raised with very little value for anything. As parents care less for their kids, the problem gets worse. As welfare programs make it better to stay on welfare then to actually get a job, the problem gets worse. As the divide between haves and have nots get bigger, the problem gets worse. As "bad" parents have more kids, then "good" parents, the problem gets worse. As immigration increases and fundamental cultural differences become apparent, the problem gets worse. There are many heads to this problem, and gun control (IMO) is not one of them.

My issue is that as these problems get worse, more and more guns are being used and without one, I could find myself in the wrong place at the wrong time and my life (or those of my loved ones) will be in the hands of someone who doesn't give a damn about it.
 
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Garet Jax said:
Just to play devils advocate here, if there are fewer guns available to be purchased, then doesn't it make it harder for criminals to get them too since there are just fewer around?

So a direct side affect no, but indirectly maybe?
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But there wouldn't be fewer guns, unless the millions that already exist here just disappear. Also, gun shops aren't the only source for guns, just like pharmacies are not the only source for drugs.
 
Garet Jax said:
I agree 100%.

Gun don't kill people any more than spoons make people fat. People make bad choices and this kills people or makes them fat.

The problem is that people who have no value for human life are more than willing to pull a trigger while pointing the gun at someone.
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Gun control will not do anything about that.
 
karmypolitics said:
Then let the criminals use "other weapons". I'd rather have someone come at me with a baseball bat than with a gun. At least I can run from that.
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I am not sure if you were serious or not.

If you were, what happens if they have throwing knifes, or rocks, or bow and arrow, if you were injured, carrying a baby, with your kids, with your parents, they are just faster than you, or (even though they are illegal) the criminal still has a gun....

There are definitely times where running is a great solution, but equally there are lots of times where running is not a good solution. Even more there are lots of times where the only option is to stand and fight. In this situation and a few others, I would like to have the option of protecting me and my family. In Canada and some parts of the States, I am not allowed to carry pepper spray (or other disabling sprays), tasers (or other disabling objects), knifes over a certain length (or other edged objects) and guns.

So when I have to stand and fight, I will almost certainly lose - even when the criminal is stupid and doesn't arm himself in any way, I still have the very real chance of losing.
 
Garet Jax said:
From what I have read, we do not know the answer for sure, but looking at only the details being reported as "fact", there is a very good chance that Zimmerman would not be here if he relied on the good will of his attacker.

Either way though - without his gun, Zimmerman's life would have likely been in the hands of his attacker. I personally am not comfortable being in that position. Putting my life in the pope's hands is one thing, but to put in the hands of someone who has shown disdain for it is a completely different thing.
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Given that the injuries sustained by Zimmerman were not serious I'm going to disagree, but obviously we will never know how that fight would have resulted. I will say you don't hear of people beating someone to death with their bare hands very often.

With that said, you are supposing that had Zimmerman not been carrying a weapon he still would have tracked down and followed someone he believed to be a criminal, which I think is much less likely. Had he not had a gun, I believe it's far more likely he would have called the police and then sat in his car, never getting in a fight with Martin at all.
 
moonbogg said:
Even if people carry weapons, they won't be ready when they are attacked. Allowing people to carry will lead to confusion as to who is the enemy and who is just defending themselves. There will be story after story of innocents being shot in the confusion of a situation.
A guy with a hand gun is going to be ready for a crazy guy with an AR-15? No way.
Is the solution to nuclear proliferation more nuclear weapons? Is the solution to kids getting bullied the supplying of each child a wooden baton or stun gun? What the hell is wrong with gun freaks? I know what it is. They are selfish and have no empathy. They are just dying to have their G.I Joe hero moment where they save the day with their trusty sidearm. Screw you guys and your stupid old western fantasies.
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Moonbogg - I am a Canadian borned and raised to hate guns - yet I am being faced with living in a world where the criminals are becoming more and more callous and using more and more cowardly ways to implement their crimes. I always believed that cops were there to protect us. I now know that police hardly ever prevent crimes, but almost always investigate them after they have happened. The vast majority of police resources are spent trying to ascertain who the criminal was who committed the crime and then trying to find them.

To a certain degree these two realizations have really got me thinking about this issue since I now have kids that need my protection. For the longest time, I had my head buried in the sand assuming that it would never happen to me or my family or assuming that the police would be there to protect me.

Your two analogies help to prove the need for guns. There has been no nuclear holocast partly (or largely) because the countries that have that ability don't want to have it returned on them.

In terms of being ready, look what happened with Zimmerman - his attacker was on top of him actively hitting him and Zimmerman was still able to free his gun and stop the attack. Not all situations will be able to stop an attack, but some definitely will.

In addition, if bullies knew that they would get their ass tasered or beaten when they next bullied someone, then they would never bully that someone ever again.

In terms of a guy with a handgun being able to stop a crazy guy with an AR-15, I have two things to say:

1) If all non-felons in the movie theater were armed with a handgun and they were all returning fire to the guy with the AR, then my guess is someone would have hit him and stopped him dead.

2) Given the choice of hoping the crazy guy with an AR 15 doesn't hit me or my family with a bullet or fighting back and hoping I hit him before he hits me, I would probably choose the latter.
 
actuarial said:
Given that the injuries sustained by Zimmerman were not serious I'm going to disagree, but obviously we will never know how that fight would have resulted. I will say you don't hear of people beating someone to death with their bare hands very often.
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The question is were the injuries Zimmerman sustained not serious because Zimmerman stopped Martin before they became serious or because Martin wasn't serious about injuring Zimmerman? Given what we do know, I have to say that it is more likely Martin showed a real intent to injure.

actuarial said:
With that said, you are supposing that had Zimmerman not been carrying a weapon he still would have tracked down and followed someone he believed to be a criminal, which I think is much less likely. Had he not had a gun, I believe it's far more likely he would have called the police and then sat in his car, never getting in a fight with Martin at all.
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I agree with this absolutely 100% - but I don't think this is necessarily a problem and here's why:

1) Zimmerman called 911 and yet the police still had not arrived even though enough time had elapsed to give Zimmerman enough time to follow Martin, give Martin enough time to sneak up on Zimmerman, physically attack him, give Zimmerman enough time to pull out his gun and stop the attack. It may have only been 30 second or less, but police aren't there to stop crime and so people need to be able to protect themselves.

2) Martin showed his true colours by attacking Zimmerman so there is no debate that Zimmerman's intuition was 100% correct and Martin's intentions were nefarious.

3) I firmly believe in neighbourhood watch systems and think they can be a great deterrent to crime. After all, who knows better the families, the kids, the cars and generally people who belong in the neighbourhood and those that don't. Zimmerman called the police seemingly as soon as he noticed Martin.

4) This is still a free country and Zimmerman wasn't breaking any laws by following Martin just to make sure he wasn't up to any trouble.

5) Who's to say that Martin wasn't about to break into a house to commit a worse crime than assault.

6) We just can't know that Martin wouldn't have attacked Zimmerman in his car. Zimmerman may have brought that attack on sooner, but he certainly didn't initiate it.

7) Through no fault of his own, Zimmerman's life was in danger and he took the steps necessary to ensure he survived the attack.

From what I have read and what I have seen reported, I have 0 problems with what Zimmerman did. I can't say I would have been brave enough to follow Martin like Zimmerman did - I appreciate my freedom more than most and am not sure I would have risked it unless Martin was actively doing something that would have been worth me risking it.
 
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Garet Jax said:
I am Canadian and I live in a society with very stringent gun controls laws. I am coming to the conclusion that all these laws do is prevent me from protecting myself against the bad guys. The bad guys are getting them (from my perspective) very easily.


This is an emotional outburst that makes no sense. Let's take Canada as an example. It has very tough handgun laws, yet over the last 20 years the number of illegal handguns in society has gone up dramatically. Logically, guns provide a huge increase in fighting power over anything else. Criminals are constantly looking for ways to get a leg up on law enforcement and each other. Outlawing guns doesn't stop these criminals from getting their hands on them - instead it makes another black market for criminals to try and assert their dominance over each other and prevents me from fighting on a common ground. Police are not there to prevent crimes - they are there to investigate afterwards and to arrest the perpetrator. The only one who can protect me and my family is me and my family.



I am Canadian whose brother in law is a LEO in one of Toronto's worst neighbourhoods. The number of handguns he finds on a daily and weekly basis has grown astronomically in the last 20 years (since he has been on the job).

There have been at least two multi-person shootings in the last couple of months in the Greater Toronto Area. 20 years ago - I would have agreed with you - now I am not sure I do.
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I bet Toronto has become a lot more diverse in the last 20 years. Amirite?
 
BlahBlahYouToo said:
I bet Toronto has become a lot more diverse in the last 20 years. Amirite?
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I wouldn't say a lot, but yes. It has always been very multicultural. I grew up with lots of friends of different heritages. The numbers of those cultures have increased though.

When I was a kid (especially a teenager), I thought nothing of going into Toronto (lived in Mississauga) for a night or a weekend with friends. Now though, there are lots of parts where I wouldn't want to be caught after hours or even during the day.

My BIL LEO doesn't help matters since he tells me about the places to just avoid.
 
This whole Zimmerman thing with people saying, "Oh if he didn't have a gun, this wouldn't have resulted in the kid's death."... While most likely a valid argument, are you all not forgetting this kid was roaming around in dark clothes, in a GATED community, at night? So as the result of his presumably bad intent, he was shot. I don't really care to debate how it all started, or the what/why/when/how stuff.. But the kid shouldn't have even been there. People who harp on Zimmerman for "standing his ground" are missing the point entirely.
 
Anyone who answers no is a fool.

Why do we have weapons of mass killing for sale. Weapons that fire 100 rounds a minute, and kill as many people as possible. Their is no point to these weapons, but anyone can walk into a gun store, and walk out with one in 5 minutes.
 
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DCal430 said:
Anyone who ansers no is a fool.

Why do have weapons of mass killing for sale. Weapons that fire 100 rounds a minute, and kill as many people as possible. Their is no point to these weapons, but anyone can walk into a gun store, and walk out with one in 5 minutes.
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There are two arguments you are combining into one.

Not all guns can fire 100 rounds a minute. Most handguns have magazines of 20 rounds or fewer and are semi-automatic.

Americans believe that they should be able to possess the same firearms as the government to be able to keep their government honest. That is a whole other discussion.

The whole premise of this thread for me was to answer the question as to whether or not allowing people guns to protect themselves increases crime? My assumption was that a gun to protect yourself meant a handgun.
 
DCal430 said:
Anyone who ansers no is a fool.

Why do have weapons of mass killing for sale. Weapons that fire 100 rounds a minute, and kill as many people as possible. Their is no point to these weapons, but anyone can walk into a gun store, and walk out with one in 5 minutes.
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You have no concept of reality do you?
 
I am sure some states allow belts with hundreds of rounds to be sold, enough to kill a whole school of children.
 
The fact you call them belts, makes you sound like a total idiot. In many states, having more than a 20 round MAGAZINE is illegal. Even to use in a range.

It is often the uneducated ones who are afraid of guns. People kill people. Not guns.
 
My opinion, as a gun owner / enthusiast, is that there should be better gun education. I believe buying any type of gun (except perhaps "hunting only" weapons - bolt action or other type of manual operation and / or low capacity) should require taking a course with a test, similar to getting your driver's license. The course should be readily available to anyone of age and without a serious record, and retraining / refreshers should be required every 10 years or so.

The existing NRA course is pretty good, but there should be more practical experience. Teach people the truth about firearms so that we have less people believing what they see in movies and on TV. Teach people have to safely deal with a loaded firearm, or how to properly store ammunition. Teach the state (and nearby state) laws on carrying, storing, and transporting firearms.

I think that if more people understood guns and not what they see on the big screen, we'd be that much better off.

And to clarify, I'm not saying that I wish it was harder to buy a gun. I wish is was fairly normal for people to take a course on them, though, similar to getting a driver's license.
 
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DCal430 said:
Fact is we have guns that could kill a classroom full of kids in a mater of seconds, these guns can be purchased by anyone basically, and background checks are a joke.
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I agree with that, but you can't undo that or solve it by removing all those guns out of society. Doing so just makes the entire society more susceptible since when criminals do want to shoot up a school, no one would be able to stop them because they will still be able to get these destructive weapons.

Besides, by outlawing them it makes it a very profitable endeavour for the black market - as it does with drugs and has done with alcohol and other things that have been outlawed.

It is just not possible to remove these weapons from society as a whole.

So we have to deal with them.

Since we can't stop the criminals from getting them, the next best solution is to figure out the best way to stop them quickly. Either we bring in more police and have them able to respond to these situations in seconds or we allow regular people in society to be the responders. In order to allow regular people to deal with these criminals, they have to be armed (for the same reason police have to be armed).

What other ways could we deal with these situations when they happen?
 
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z1ggy said:
The fact you call them belts, makes you sound like a total idiot. In many states, having more than a 20 round MAGAZINE is illegal. Even to use in a range.

It is often the uneducated ones who are afraid of guns. People kill people. Not guns.
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I am sure some guns use ammunition belts. Such as this one:
M60.jpg
 
xj0hnx said:
Gun control will not do anything about that.
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I agree with you. I am starting to firmly believe that society has come to a point where the good people need to be able to defend themselves against the bad people. :-(

I believe there is no way to stop the bad people from doing the things they do and that it is impossible to have enough police to be able to stop crime before it starts or just as it is starting.

So that leaves it up to me and I am unable to carry the correct tool to do the job.
 
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