# Confiscation of guns: What do gun owners fear exactly? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 10, 2019, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510 "2019-01-10T05:53:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/441 "2019-01-24T20:03:21Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > We don’t just “let” people do any of those things, now do we? Tell us what it takes, and then we can agree that guns should require at least the same, okay? Sure. To own a car to keep on your property, you need cash. No license, no insurance, no tags, nothing except cash. To drive a car you need to apply to the state for a license which is issued for a nominal fee and you must demonstrate only minimum proficiency with no criminal background check required. Once you do that, the authorities must issue you a license without showing any special need. So, yes, we can do that. You can own any gun you want as long as you keep it on your property, including felons and the insane. If you want to carry it in public you pay a nominal fee and pass a written proficiency requirement and you can then carry it anywhere in public, including the felons and the insane. Deal? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/442 "2019-01-24T20:04:25Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > We don’t just “let” people do any of those things, now do we? Tell us what it takes, and then we can agree that guns should require at least the same, okay? You have to have a license to drive a car on _public_ highways- but nothing at home. You have to have a license to carry a concealed weapon in\* public\*- but nothing in your own home. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/443 "2019-01-24T20:09:14Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Fear of getting killed is not irrational. It’s psychologically _normal_. For that matter, so are rationalization and denial, however. I would stay off the public roads then. Watch your eating, stop smoking. Get frequent check ups. Get your flu shot. Don drink too much. Because getting shot isnt even in the Top ten: > **[The top leading causes of death in the United States](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929)** > > This article looks at the leading causes of death in the United States, including heart disease, cancer, and the impact of COVID-19. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/444 "2019-01-24T20:14:17Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Is that what you would tell the guy who got shot by Dancing FBI Fuckwad? Sounds like an argument for why FBI agents shouldn’t carry guns. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Fear of getting killed is not irrational. It’s psychologically _normal_. For that matter, so are rationalization and denial, however. So let’s say I am scared of illegal immigrants murdering me and my family. Is that enough? If you can prove to me with empirical evidence that such a fear is just bullshit stoked by propaganda, then is that good enough or should we build the wall anyways to alleviate my fears? Does your side only get to argue facts or do you also get to set policy based on raw emotion? > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Are you under the impression that there was never any illegal carrying going on before that? If the rate at which people, with all their human failings, are actually carrying, legal or not, hasn’t changed, then the rate of their use shouldn’t be expected to. You really ought to be aware of how little the permit requirement ever actually meant in reality - effectively nothing. Good. Sounds like you support shall issue CCW in NY, MD, CA, and other states that have a policy which does “effectively nothing.” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/445 "2019-01-24T20:31:09Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Sounds like an argument for why FBI agents shouldn’t carry guns. Either you don’t get it or you’re evading it. The FBI agent was a concealed carrier (and presumably better trained and disciplined than a civilian). You assert that it is actually \*irrational \*to fear concealed carriers, that \*nothing \*wrong can happen. The facts are contrary to your statement. > [@](#): > > Does your side only get to argue facts or do you also get to set policy based on raw emotion? The fears that are the topic of this thread are those of gun owners. If they have actual, non-cherry-picked facts to validate those fears, they by all means should present them. You can start any time. > [@](#): > > Good. Sounds like you support shall issue CCW in NY, MD, CA, and other states that have a policy which does “effectively nothing.” How you can get from a plain English statement to \*that \*is baffling. But, when you can tell us why we should have expected a change in results from a change from an almost-never-enforced requirement to none at all, please do so. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/446 "2019-01-24T20:32:12Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You have to have a license to drive a car on _public_ highways- but nothing at home. You have to have a license to carry a concealed weapon in\* public\*- but nothing in your own home. Car and driver regulation goes quite a bit beyond that, doesn’t it? Now keep working at it and see what you can tell us. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/447 "2019-01-24T20:50:01Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Either you don’t get it or you’re evading it. The FBI agent was a concealed carrier (and presumably better trained and disciplined than a civilian). You assert that it is actually \*irrational \*to fear concealed carriers, that \*nothing \*wrong can happen. The facts are contrary to your statement. It _is_ irrational. Your chance of being shot by a CCW carrier is less than of a thousand other things. Are you paralysed with fear upon driving or even crossing the street? Do you stay out of the ocean due to fear of sharks? Do you run in fear when anyone lights up a ciggie? 50,000- _fiftyfuckingthousand_deaths per year of non-smokers due to _secondhand_ smoke. I listed the top ten things that kill you- and several of them even have things that you do do to lower the risk. Are you afraid of them? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/448 "2019-01-24T20:56:14Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Either you don’t get it or you’re evading it. The FBI agent was a concealed carrier (and presumably better trained and disciplined than a civilian). You assert that it is actually \*irrational \*to fear concealed carriers, that \*nothing \*wrong can happen. The facts are contrary to your statement. We live in a country with 320 million people. There is going to be outlier conduct and just plain random bad things happen everywhere. I am frankly surprised at how truly _law abiding_ and safe people who carry guns actually are. I would have expected that in many occasions a perfect storm would arise in which a guy who carries concealed is hit with a bad week that makes him snap and overreact to a mundane situation. I’m sure it has happened, but I am surprised that I’ve never heard of such a thing or that it is not rather commonplace, commonplace meaning that it is not in the Brady Handgun Control newsletter on a weekly basis. But you cannot use these one-offs as evidence of anything at all. Yes, it seems an FBI guy accidentally shot someone in a bar somewhere. You cannot use that as evidence of any sort of broader picture, like my joke suggestion that FBI agents should not carry guns. You have to extrapolate from data to make social policy and see the big picture. And it is certainly cold comfort (and indeed may be even more tragic) to tell a person that he or she lost his/her spouse because of an unsecure truck load that her family tragedy is so very rare, that doesn’t justify a wide spread policy of banning hauling of loads by trucks. The point is that we can see anecdotal evidence where we want to see it. Broader policy requires data. Which leads to: > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The fears that are the topic of this thread are those of gun owners. If they have actual, non-cherry-picked facts to validate those fears, they by all means should present them. You can start any time. Objection. You don’t get to frame the debate in this way. The default in any free country is freedom. The burden is on you to show why that a person carrying a pistol in a holster burdens your enjoyment of society somehow in a rational way, and like I said above, with real evidence not anecdote. But I will give you a concession as I did in a previous thread. I believe that these guys who want to carry rifles over their shoulders in urban population centers should be prevented from doing so. That behavior is sufficiently unusual as to justify a reasonable person in fearing for his safety. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/449 "2019-01-24T21:01:21Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Car and driver regulation goes quite a bit beyond that, doesn’t it? Now keep working at it and see what you can tell us. How about you quit playing magic 8 ball and make your point? We have made ours. You can drive any fast car on the public roads of all 50 states by paying a modest fee, showing minimum proficiency, and without a showing of any special need. If we apply that to guns, we get shall issue CCW across the country. What is your rebuttal? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/450 "2019-01-24T21:03:57Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > But I will give you a concession as I did in a previous thread. I believe that these guys who want to carry rifles over their shoulders in urban population centers should be prevented from doing so. That behavior is sufficiently unusual as to justify a reasonable person in fearing for his safety. Prevented? I am not sure about that. But they\* are \*show offs, jerks, like the guy with a jacked up truck. I would be slightly concerned about them, I admit. They are jerks. But some guy with a pistol holstered at his hip- that actually would make me feel a little safer. OTOH, even if open carry was legal, I would only do so off the beaten track- like there’s a hiking trail here that goes back a homeless encampment or two, and there have been incidents. So not in the Walmart, but on a 'city" trail. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/451 "2019-01-25T01:27:52Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Either you don’t get it or you’re evading it. I’m still waiting to hear why we should trust you around children. Every time you play this card it blows up in your face like you are a loony toons character, but you slap it down with the same expression of triumph on your face every time. We get it, you don’t believe anybody can be trusted to privately own a gun because nobody can be trusted. Well, big guy, I don’t trust you to be near children because nobody can be trusted. Make you a deal…you agree to never be within 150 feet of a child again, and I’ll sell all my guns. What do you say? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/452 "2019-01-25T03:49:14Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 😕 Hobbies can be silly. My own hobbies may be silly. I disapprove of soccer hooliganism. _ **But …** _ > > Bass fishing. Stamp collecting. Carrying guns around with a round in the chamber and a viscous mentality. Table tennis. Square dancing. > > Which item in the above list is different from the others? Fishing involves causing pain to a living creature and the longer the exchange takes place the more satisfaction is generated. So I think you assigned “vicious mentality” to the wrong hobby. And you poisoned the well in the process with your wording. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2019, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/453 "2019-01-25T22:12:19Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > I’m still waiting to hear why we should trust you around children. Every time you play this card it blows up in your face like you are a loony toons character, but you slap it down with the same expression of triumph on your face every time. > We get it, you don’t believe anybody can be trusted to privately own a gun because nobody can be trusted. Well, big guy, I don’t trust you to be near children because nobody can be trusted. Make you a deal…you agree to never be within 150 feet of a child again, and I’ll sell all my guns. What do you say? This is a good point. How do we trust police officers, secret service agents, renters, babysitters, or people with top secret clearance? We can do the most thorough background checks ever done, but all that means is that they have not done something bad…yet. It would mean that all laws, to the extent that we haven’t gotten there yet, should be targeted to the dumbest and/or most violent people among us. No more alcohol, gambling, campfires, backyard grills, indoor fireplaces, self serve gasoline, kitchen knives, or any of these other things because we can point to anecdotal evidence where at a certain time some idiot hurt someone with them. And no permits either, because although I have started hundreds of campfires successfully, who’s to say that when starting the next one I won’t be drunk or inattentive and burn thousands of acres down? And, to your point, child molestation. I have never molested a child, but every child molester could have truthfully said that before his first child molestation, right? ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/454 "2019-04-19T01:18:09Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Good. Sounds like you support shall issue CCW in NY, MD, CA, and other states that have a policy which does “effectively nothing.” Anyone who supports a “shall issue” permit policy in my city of New York is an imbecile who should not be permitted to drive a car or possess a credit card or even sign a contract for cable TV, let alone carry a lethal killing tool. Really. And the numbers bear me out. Since New York City has started actually enforcing its (excellent) gun laws, the homicide rate has fallen through the floor. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/455 "2019-04-19T02:36:45Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Anyone who supports a “shall issue” permit policy in my city of New York is an imbecile who should not be permitted to drive a car or possess a credit card or even sign a contract for cable TV, let alone carry a lethal killing tool. > > Really. > > And the numbers bear me out. Since New York City has started actually enforcing its (excellent) gun laws, the homicide rate has fallen through the floor. Yeah…your police are the tits. Ask Frank Serpico. Remember, you used the word “enforcing.” ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/456 "2019-04-19T11:16:40Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Since New York City has started actually enforcing its (excellent) gun laws, the homicide rate has fallen through the floor. It’s [absolutely true](https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/murder-map-deadliest-u-s-cities/10/) that the murder rate in New York City has fallen dramatically in the last few decades. Maybe if New York City joined most of the rest of the United States in adopting “shall issue” y’all could get that rate down to as low as [El Paso, Texas](https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/murder-map-deadliest-u-s-cities/7/). ---
**Author:** ![galen\_ubal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galen_ubal/32/4440_2.png) [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/457 "2019-04-19T11:47:49Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > It’s [absolutely true](https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/murder-map-deadliest-u-s-cities/10/) that the murder rate in New York City has fallen dramatically in the last few decades. > > Maybe if New York City joined most of the rest of the United States in adopting “shall issue” y’all could get that rate down to as low as [El Paso, Texas](https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/murder-map-deadliest-u-s-cities/7/). Better yet, go with Australia’s [don’t issue at all](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#Australia) for a homicide rate of .94, as opposed to the USA’s rate of 5.35. Face it, every other first world country has far more restrictive gun laws, and all of them have far lower homicide rates - in fact, it’s damn near a straight-line correlation between the number of guns and the homicide rate. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/458 "2019-04-19T16:49:28Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > … > > And the numbers bear me out. Since New York City has started actually enforcing its (excellent) gun laws, the homicide rate has fallen through the floor. That’s very interesting- apparently, NYC is more important than we left coasters realize, since their enforcement of their gun laws has caused a decrease in homicide rates all across the USA.:eek::eek::eek: > **[What the data says (and doesn’t say) about crime in the United States](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/)** > > The two primary sources of government crime statistics both paint an incomplete picture, though efforts at improvement are underway. \*1Violent crime in the U.S. has fallen sharply over the past quarter century. The two most commonly cited sources of crime statistics in the U.S. both show a substantial decline in the violent crime rate since it peaked in the early 1990s. One is an annual report by the FBI of serious crimes reported to police in approximately 18,000 jurisdictions around the country. The other is an annual survey of more than 90,000 households conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which asks Americans ages 12 and older whether they were victims of crime, regardless of whether they reported those crimes to the police. Using the FBI numbers, the violent crime rate fell 49% between 1993 and 2017. Using the BJS data, the rate fell 74% during that span\* Or\* perhaps \*NY’s enforcement of gun laws has done nothing but ride the overall decrease in violent crime across the nation and it has nothing to do with gun laws. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510/459 "2019-04-19T16:55:46Z")
> [@galen\_ubal](#): > > Better yet, go with Australia’s [don’t issue at all](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#Australia) for a homicide rate of .94, as opposed to the USA’s rate of 5.35. > Face it, every other first world country has far more restrictive gun laws, and all of them have far lower homicide rates - in fact, it’s damn near a straight-line correlation between the number of guns and the homicide rate. Cherry Picking data. Who cares what nations were on the side of the West during the Cold war? The USA lies smack dab in the middle of ALL nations in homicide rate. In any case, others nations arent the USA, with the USA’s long tradition of personal gun ownership. In Australia they bought back 640K guns. In America we have 300 million guns. And those new guns laws may or **may not** have had a effect: wiki: \*Some studies on the effects of Australia’s gun laws have suggested that Australia’s gun laws have been effective in reducing mass shootings, gun suicides and armed crime,[3] while other studies suggest that the laws have had little effect.[4][5] \* [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confiscation-of-guns-what-do-gun-owners-fear-exactly/827510.md?page=22)