Or maybe they just like to fuck with you.
I have heard of it. Your country has one of the highest rates of incarceration of any country in the world. And a monstrously high rate of gun violence. So that’s working well.
Plus I’m guessing dead people don’t find the fact that the person who shot them subsequently went to jail of enormous comfort.
What now?
So your argument is that an actual guy with a gun near me is less dangerous to me than a theoretical bad guy who might or might not exist?
Part of the disjunct between you and your fellow travellers and reality lies in your naïve belief that good guys don’t turn bad and/or that it’s clear who the good guys are.
You realise that a murderer who legally owns and is legally carrying a gun fits the description “someone legally carrying”, right?
With all due respect, you have no idea what you are talking about… which is typical when it comes to gun control ideas. People who don’t know the difference between a magazine and a cartridge and a bullet propose laws about a subject they know absolutely nothing about. People who don’t know the difference between a flash suppressor and a noise suppressor write laws about semi-automatic rifles.
There are no loopholes regarding selling firearms to friends. If I want to sell a gun to a friend, I have to follow all of the laws in my state, which vary depending on whether I am selling a long gun or a handgun (in my state). The BATFE rules with an iron fist, and gun dealers are scared shitless about the required paperwork and fines. Dealers are regularly fined and closed down due to arcane bureaucratic requirements. Gun shows are no different than anywhere else you want to buy a gun. If you buy from a dealer, which in my experience comprises the vast majority of transactions at a gun show, you complete all of the normal paperwork and background checks.
Ah, there’s the oft-used, but always misleading “reasonable”, usually combined with “common sense”. And you should do a little historical research on what the founding fathers meant by “well-regulated”. It has nothing to do with government regulations. The 2nd amendment, like all of the other bill of rights, are about protecting “the people” from the government, not the other way around. I know… the 2nd amendment is a frustrating problem for gun banners. And, boy, am I thankful for that.
We have high gun violence and incarceration precisely because people don’t want to put forth the effort to make social changes and raise decent human beings… Which was my entire point to begin with.
The problem for those who oppose any new gun regulation at all, is they are fighting a battle they will ultimately lose. As casualties mount, public opinion is going to change, and eventually there will be a tipping point, and new regulations will be passed. To expect that we as a country will continue to accept atrocity after atrocity forever is a fool’s paradise. When that point is reached, the resulting laws will be much more restrictive than anything that might be passed today. Gun advocates should really consider their chances in the future, versus their bargaining power now. Take the cannoli.
What social changes would you have put in place to cut down on gun violence?
Because when I see someone with a gun, I do not have access to their thoughts. There are a limited number of possibilities, all scary:
- The person possibly intends to use that gun. Probably not on me specificially, but I’m at risk from poor aim, ricochets, and general mayhem.
- The person is carrying a gun he does not intend to use. Why would he go to the trouble? Presumably to intimidate others. That is unpleasant: I do not like that type of person to be carrying deadly weapons.
- In a safe and responsible manner, the person is transporting a gun he intends to use elsewhere.
Case #3 is not scary, but in that scenario I’m probably not even aware of the gun.
What happens if I don’t buy from a dealer, but from a ‘friend’ who is following all the laws of your state? Does the normal paperwork and background check get done?
If not, then you’ve just found the loophole. A ‘criminal’ who would not pass a background check simply makes his purchase from a private individual rather than a dealer. Do you not see that as a bit of gap in coverage?
It varies by state. In my state, I am free to sell a long gun to anyone who is allowed to own a gun without going through a dealer, and with no background check. In my state, all handgun sales must go through a dealer, who runs a background check and does the paperwork (and charges a fee to do so). In many states, sales of both long guns and handguns have to go through a dealer, and in other states, private sales of long guns and handguns do not.
I still see no loophole. Both the buyer and seller are breaking the law, then. Even possessing a gun is illegal for convicted felons, and yet they do it all the time. Which simply proves the point that, duh, criminals don’t care about breaking the law. Creating new laws does little to prevent criminals from getting guns… or drugs, or explosives. Drugs have been illegal for decades, and yet are so widespread just about anyone can buy them.
But laws do prevent cautious and law-abiding people from buying guns, which means over the long run criminals will have guns and law-abiding people will not, which is a recipe for disaster.
Your best-case scenario seems to envision direct combat between “cautious and law-abiding people” and criminals, which is (a) implausible and (b) would, in fact, turn those cautious and law-abiding people into incautious vigilantes. Unless you’re imagining a series of home invasion robberies where the good guys kill the criminals one by one, inefficiently and ruining many a carpet in the process? Where is the disaster if these c. & l.-a. people don’t have guns?
The argument that criminals don’t care about laws is foolish. For one thing, it’s not all-or-nothing. Criminals drive carefully, as they know many a criminal has been caught by a traffic stop. Criminals may not respect the institutions of the law, but they live in the real world. Their risk assessment may not be their top skill, but it’s not zero, either, and the risks they take are calculated (often hilariously poorly calculated).
Otherwise, your argument is an anarchist one. Criminals don’t obey the laws, anyway. So why bother with laws? It just ties the hands of cautious and law-abiding people.
This presumes that both buyer and seller are criminals, or have no care about the law. A responsible gun owner selling a gun will comply with the law and go through a dealer, denying one gun to a potential criminal. Responsible gun owners outnumber irresponsible ones, or so I am led to believe. We don’t have to get all of them, you know.
“There are a limited number of possibilities, all scary.”
THIS is a perfect example of my point. When liberals see somebody with a gun, they immediately imagine all sorts of horrible things, none of which are at all likely to happen. When conservatives see somebody with a gun, they see a reasonable person, and they mentally applaud his foresight and his prudence.
THAT is why liberals are the fearful ones.
Pro-tip #1: It’s the gun you DON’T see that is liable to be used to kill you. No criminal is going to advertise his weapon until he actually uses it.
Pro-tip #2: There are far more guns you don’t see than guns you do see. (And many of them are carried by law-abiding people.) Only a very small percentage of people open carry. And yet liberals get so flustered and so scared over the tip of the iceberg.
Why is it that prudence is demonized when it comes to guns? If somebody installs a fire extinguisher in his home, nobody goes around calling him a bully or a coward, or makes snide remarks that he’s “compensating” for something. Nobody calls him paranoid. Nobody suggests that he might be going out of his way to look for trouble. Nobody claims that he’s trying to “intimidate” fire.
But when the same exact behavior is used to take precautions against criminals, suddenly it’s irresponsible, reprehensible, paranoid behavior to the Nth degree.
The difference of course, is that your criminal is imaginary.
How is carrying a gun foresight, if there is no cause to use it?
How is carrying a gun prudent, full stop?
If criminals are driving carefully, then exactly why and how are they getting pulled over?
They’re black. (Serious answer: okay, *attempt *to drive carefully.)
So you are claiming that crime does not exist? How. . . . interesting.
If you had bothered to comprehend the analogy of a fire extinguisher, you would not be asking those questions.
I saw the analogy. I do not understand it. A fire extinguisher’s primary and sole purpose is putting out fires, which it does effectively and efficiently. For guns, stopping crimes (assuming that is your analogy) is neither primary nor sole purpose, and they are neither effective nor efficient in doing so.
A gun’s twin purposes are (1) to put a bullet into a target, causing great damage and potentially loss of life and (2) to use the threat of (1) to intimidate others and cause them to modify their behaviour to the gunsel’s orders.
Perhaps I am stupid, but I really don’t see how a gun is like a fire extinguisher.
“Blame parents” is not a remotely justifiable or effective solution to the problem of gun violence.