You’re using one example as your evidence of guns not working?
California has one of the lowest gun death rates in America, they also have some of the strongest gun control. Meanwhile somewhere like Alabama, has some of the highest gun death rates in America, they also have some of the weakest gun control.
Gun control in America is something that would probably only work if absolutely, draconianly, enforced. Otherwise you still end up with gun-free zones like the Aurora theater getting shot up, and Chicago with its gun-control laws still having some of the nation’s highest rates of gun violence.
Not to put words in anyone’s mouth but when gun control folks talk about serious debate on gun control, the debate is not supposed to be about whether or not we shout have gun control but about what form it should take.
So you would be cool with getting rid of the stuff we have in place now? After all, they don’t do anything, amirite?
This is exactly my point: California has “some of the strongest gun control” and yet, they still have people getting shot to death in Gilroy. Do you recognize that this is a failure of their “some of the strongest gun control” laws, or do you think it was functioning as desired?
Would you like some additional ones?
San Bernardino, Thousand Oaks, Isla Vista, Oikos University, Christopher Dorner, Santa Monica, etc.
Is California’s gun control scheme a success or a failure?
Precisely. That’s my point about Democrats, and other politicians for that matter, except for #3. That is, ban enough guns and you will then see results.
If you tell me which things you are referring to, I’d be happy to tell you how I feel about each. Short of that, I have no way of knowing if you are right or not.
People die in traffic accidents every day. Should we abolish all traffic laws?
How about you point at why gun control laws don’t work 100% and suggest how to make them work better?
It absolutely is at play when people use mass shootings as a justification for policy. The OP skipped right past gun violence at large and went straight for for mass shootings. You and I and our loved ones are at neglible risk from mass shootings in the US. Fear of mass shootings is irrational. If people are scared of mass shootings, the solution is education, therapy, or mockery. Not do-something laws. And it’s absolutely material to the TSA. Either irrational fears are or are not justification for policy. And if they are, then we get security theater, stranger danger, etc. And while guns don’t affect me, security theater does. So when I see irrational justifications for policy changes, I’m going to challenge them.
As for larger gun violence and actual risk assessment, the OP asks when we are going to have that debate. We are having it. We’ve been having it. And people keep voting in legislators who prefer the status quo. Because they like guns or [eaglescreech]freedom[/eaglescreech] or whatever. Or they don’t care and vote for pubs for other reasons just like I don’t care and vote for dems for other reasons.
No, they didn’t ban guns. Where did you get that notion?
I think it’s a failure to go far enough, this is not an indicator that the step in having gun control is the problem or worsens the problem, it simply indicates that it does not go far enough to solve the problem.
The only way it works is if you truly do the dystopian “repeal-the-2nd-and-go-confiscating-guns-door-to-door” thing. Otherwise, in a nation of 300 million people, with 300 million guns, and a long history and culture of mass shootings, you’re still at “all it takes is one.”
Barack Obama, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but we seem to agree that California’s gun control scheme has failed. We differ in that you appear to think the solution is even more extreme gun control. Do you think your desired solution falls somewhere on the spectrum close to what Velocity just described: the dystopian “repeal-the-2nd-and-go-confiscating-guns-door-to-door” thing?
Where did he buy that gun? It was Nevada. In fact I read that when there is gun show near the Nevada California border, the shooting rate in California goes up.
Gun control in California is not the problem - gun control in Nevada is.
Let’s have a history lesson.
In japan, during the sengoku period, the diamyo started to confiscate swords/firearms from peasants and lower class people. This was because of groups like the ikko-ikki which was basically a militia feared to attempt to overthrow rule in japan. As a result they went around taking everyones sword, later during the late 1800s they banned even samurais from having swords. The emperor’s own army were the only ones allowed ot have swords. It wasn’t until the late 1600s that they expanded on gun and sword regulations, giving peasants the ability to use firearms on their land to drive off animals and common sense things like that. Mind you japan had more guns per capita than any country during the late 1500s. Japan had a huge surplus of weapons, the gov literally said no give me ur fucking guns, then they expanded on their regulations allowing certain freedoms for gun use, but the basis was an all ban for most people.
So when someone is afraid of the government taking their guns, maybe it would be for the better if we did. I know it’s not realistic, but historically it seems to have worked pretty good considering Japan has virtually no gun crime.
Is anyone still using the “good man with a gun” argument? Because that seems pretty much done for after Dayton this weekend, where the authorities shot the guy down about 30 seconds after he opened fire, and he still managed to kill 9 people and injure a bunch more.
Which leads me to this: it doesn’t matter who (gender, race, ideology) and it doesn’t matter why. What matters (it seems to me, and in my humble opinion) is that people, any non-military people, have access to guns which have (or can be made to have) firing abilities that have no earthly use except to kill a lot of people very fast. I don’t know or care what names these guns go by. It ought to be possible to define them well enough so that they could be effectively* banned.
*effectively, in this context, means not that the government would go around searching homes to find and remove all of these types of guns. It means that no such gun could be legally sold to anyone anywhere in this country (outside the military), and that possession of such a gun should be a felony.
I know this only addresses mass shootings, and there are too many other types of guns, but I really have no idea what can be done about those. Ruken’s assertion about the actual likelihood of being shot in a mass shooting vs. being shot by someone with a cheap pistol is true but beside the point. The way terrorism works is to take big actions that make people afraid irrationally. This tactic can be very effective, as shown by the reactions since the weekend. Once this gun issue is resolved, there is still the opportunity to address the more difficult gun possession issues.
We’re back?
538 has a nice interactive graphic:
and the closing statement is “The common element in all these deaths is a gun. But the causes are very different, and that means the solutions must be, too.”
He got the fucking gun in Nevada. It was only a failure because the feds wont do anything. Anything that makes it tougher for fucko’s to get them is a win. Are you ok with fucko’s getting things that can do this sort of thing?
Do we really have to do this again? No, they didn’t ban ALL guns. Yes they did heavily restrict SOME guns to the point of making them unavailable to the common person. From your link:
Category D
All self-loading centrefire rifles, pump-action or self-loading shotguns that have a magazine capacity of more than 5 rounds, semi-automatic rimfire rifles over 10 rounds, are restricted to government agencies, occupational shooters and primary producers