There is a significant portion of the hunting population that hunt strictly with handguns, either due to rifle restrictions or the extra challenge provided by the lower powered cartridges. And let’s not forget the collectors.
Not to forget target and competition shooting. Many gun control advocates don’t believe this is a good enough reason to own them though. I own mine for target shooting. That it doubles as a defensive weapon is a bonus.
Thi sis a reasonable point, but with a couple of flaws. If the murder is premeditated- then gun laws or no- the killer will have a gun.
If it is “in the heat of anger” you make a stronger point- except that a large knife (available in every kitchen) is deadlier than most guns.
Guns are no more dealy than knives- but that have a MUCH longer range.
As enipla pointed out- there is also target shooting. Since only 1 gun in a hundred is actually used in either crime or self-protection, I’d argue that the “primary purpose” is to shoot holes in targets. 
sentient, part of the issue is your use of the word “cause”.
They are a significant contributing factor, but not the cause.
The causes are the causes of violent crime in the first place. Ready access to guns allows violent crime to more likely result in murder but is not the prime cause of murder. Most murders are in the heat of argument, often related to money, drugs, gangs, etc. The root causes are those factors.
It does not necessarily follow that heavy-handed measures are needed or called for. Deal with root causes when possible. Reduce the availability of guns to be used in those particular circumstances. Do so in a way with as little imposition upon legal gun owners as possible.
No, they are not similar. Assault by sharp object data shows the US is eight times as lethal as the UK. That even beats out the firearm statistics. Maybe we ought to take away the US’s knives and give them guns. Think of all the lives that would be saved!
The assault rates are not similar!
‘just saying’ is all, but… not every altercation that results in ‘heat of anger’ takes place in a kitchen, whereas we are talking (or at least the issue is on the table) about guns that are carried on the person while they are out and about. That’s the thing that is at the heart of the issue for me; that a person ‘in the heat of anger’ finds themselves with the ready means to resolve that anger by inflicting immediate deadly violence. I’m fairly confident (and I’ll freely admit that we’re into wild guess territory here) that, if US-style gun ownership were introduced into the UK, there would be an alarming rise in cases of murder that began as a silly argument or trivial confrontation (like road rage, for example).
You have made it clear that this is your opinion, but we haven’t seen data supporting this idea.
Well, then you’d expect to have a much higher rate of those crimes in States that allow the legal carrying or easy issuance of a CWP- and that simply isn’t so. In fact, it’s the opposite. I dunno why- it could be that only States that have a low shooting rate allow such carrying, or it could be that knowing that they “other guy” mught carry a gun might make dues more polie- or knowing that YOU caryy a gun might make you more confident. In fact, such shootings were also rare in the “Old West”. Early “no carry” laws were enacted in somw towns not because of shoot-outs, but because of cowboys having a good time and shooting their guns off randomly.
I’m not sure that follows; I was talking about the introduction of a means of immediate lethal violence to a culture where lethal violence has hitherto been something you had to work at a bit. Bit of a non-sequitur, I suppose though.
Evidently you remember more than I do. Plus, you haven’t shown enough logic for me to pay much attention to you. You resort to rude jibes, instead.
Frankly, I don’t agree with your assessment.
We are not concerned with homocides, which include police shootings and self-defense, we are concerned with intentional, illegal harm. You know, like crime?
Your blather about
just doesn’t address our question here.
Unless you want to take the guns away from the police, as well?
Cite?
So depriving someone of a Constitutional right without any cause is what, exactly? Why do you find it acceptable to deprive someone of that particular right when they have done absolutely nothing to merit losing it?
Should we put duct tape and gags on people going into theatres because they have a voice and might use it to shout ‘Fire!’?
The government should not be in the business of restricting people’s rights because of some wild-assed guess that they might do something sometime in their lives.
You do realize that the term ‘homicide’ in and of itself does not indicate the illegality of the act and does include those deaths caused by police and other citizens defending themselves? ‘Justifiable homicide’ and all.
A justifiable homicide for self defense should definitely not be used as a reason to scream ‘too many murders’.
I have hunted with a handgun only, and I also carry a handgun with me when hunting with a rifle. Should I shoot and wound an animal, and approach to find it still alive, I can administer a quick fatal shot.
My instructors have all been quick to point out that inside ten feet, a gun is no match for a knife. The one with the knife will likely win by stabbing the hell out of you before you can even draw.
Cite for the ‘in the heat of the argument’?
That’s the point; once they have done something to merit losing it, someone else it lying in a pool of their own blood and it’s too late to do anything.
I don’t know; how big of a problem is this behaviour?
In America we assume that all men are created equal, but we don’t assume they stay that way.
In fact, some go to lengths to develop their body as a weapon more lethal than handguns, while others don’t, choosing instead to put their energies into creative tasks, for instance. So your suggestion of a “square go” is ludicrous. Plus, it’s criminal in the US to beat other people up, and we are not allowed to recommend illegal activity on this website.
The Colt pistol was once referred to as “The Great Equalizer” because it allowed the weak to compete with the strong. The handgun serves that purpose today, allowing people to protect themselves and their family from others in what you have so aptly pointed out is a violent culture.
America is a violent place compared to some other countries, and in such a violent place a tool to deal with such violence is reasonable. You wouldn’t go to Antarctica with just a sweater, you would dress appropriately.
We can’t rely on our police to protect us, and we’re not about to give up and let the criminals have their way with us. We’re not built that way. We have tools here for each person to take a personal stand against crime. Unfortunately we have been unable to prevent some of those tools from falling into the hands of criminals.
**Alien’s ** suggestion that we look at homocides instead of murder is another ludicrous suggestion. We are not concerned with stopping self-defense uses or police uses of handguns, we are (according to the OP, which we can deviate from if we agree) addressing primarily the connection between guns and crime.
If we are to determine a relationship between crime and firearm ownership, we have to stick to crime. If we are to determine if we should do something about it, we will have to come up with a strategy that has a reasonable opportunity of being effective. I have seen name-calling, assupmtions, data without cites, rejection of detailed statistics based on opinions about those statistics and stupid analogies with drunk driving, but I have NOT seen any proof to the contention that firearms cause more crime, or even to the contention that firearms make the crime more lethal. I have also not seen any reasonable suggestions whether anything should be done.
Also, the OP is not limited to the US, but we seem to be picking on the US because why? because we are anomalous? Independent? Free? because we don’t want to be like everyone else?
Frankly, I like the US. It’s not perfect, but I’d rather live here than somewhere where my fate is decided for me by someone with a blood relationship to some conquerer of long ago. I like to have a hand in deciding my own fate, though it has become rather marginalized. And I don’t want someone who killed a woman by driving his car off a bridge to tell me I can’t own firearms. Or anyone else for that matter.
If it could be adequately demonstrated that the “greater good” could be served by restricting firearm use, I’d agree. And in fact, I have. I agree that criminals should not have firearms instead of law-abiding citizens. I agree on those firearm restrictions.
Frankly, if drug dealers want to shoot each other (as happened recently here on Oahu), that’s just two more criminals off the streets that we don’t have to pay to keep in jail. But they show up in even “murder” statistics.
If you want to have some statistics to convince me, it will have to show that a solution has a reasonable chance of reducing the murder of innocents without putting additional innocents in danger.
I choose to not have any guns; but that is my choice. catsix chooses to have a gun, and we Americans, in large part, respect that choice. Already her possessing a gun has stopped at least one crime, perhaps more. And it hasn’t endangered anyone. I’m glad she had a gun; it probably saved her life.
Those who want to remove guns from law-abiding citizens are essentially writing a death warrant for those citizens, and probably are protecting no one.
To keep guns out of the hands of criminals would be a worthy cause, but full-automatics have been illegal since 1935 or so, and ONLY criminals, police and the military (essentially, some license-holders exist) have them. A few years ago someone down the street from me fired a fully-automatic weapon into the air. I saw tracers going into the air. I called police, but couldn’t tell which house it was, so it’s likely still around. Likely it was a theft from the military, since it had tracers, which are not permitted for citizens to purchase. Criminals will always be able to get guns; it’s the nature of the business. With a criminal owning a full-auto weapon down the street from me, you want to make it illegal for me to own a gun? That’s just crazy. Figure out how to collect the criminals guns, first.
So we have a high murder rate for industrialized countries. I don’t feel it’s high enough among* innocents* for me to worry about. If you are worried about it, don’t come here. If you’re worried about it and you live here, vote. If you are just learning how to drive, you are likely not old enough to vote and our government doesn’t consider you to be adequately able to separate your passions from your logic yet in order to vote, and I agree.
So, as they say, “Where’s the beef?”
You sound like you’re arguing an absolute here, but I suspect in reality, you’re just preferring to draw the line of acceptability in a different place to where I’d like it - are you sure there’s no potentially harmful act that you’d actually like the government to try to forestall?
How does the idea that they might justify the action of taking away a Constitutional right?
Probably only slightly less common than the problem of one of the 80,000,000 legal gun owners in the US going apeshit and committing murder.
Really, if it were that easy for an argument to turn deadly because someone involved in it was a gun owner, why aren’t there millions of these killings a year?
I’ve not really been talking about taking away anyone’s constitutional rights, since that one in particular isn’t one they have to begin with where I live. I’m really talking about whether or not it is desirable that people should be allowed to have about their person the means to easily exact immediate lethal violence.
That’s an emotionally-based illogical assumption. Most people who lose their rights to own or carry firearms because of unrelated causes. There are far more people restricted than those who have committed murder or even manslaughter.
Mental illness, participation in lesser crimes, incompetence, threats, all these are far more common than illegal killings. Your point is blunt.
So we should probably do something about those too. I think there’s a logical fallacy in there somewhere (that we should allow x because Y is much much worse).