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80
5 votes
Sep 5, 2015

The reduction in gun death rate would drop for domestic violence, while beatings, knifing and other such things would go up some and gun deaths due to crime would increase because criminals know you can't have a gun to protect yourself with. Additionally the government can now take control of every aspect of our lives with militarized police forces without threat of any rebellion because the public is disarmed.

Let's hypothesize that I want to kill you, my access to a gun or not doesn't effect the fact that I want to kill you. What a gun ban would do is prevent me from legally obtaining a gun with which to kill you. How much of a barrier to entry is this ? If I want to kill you but can't shoot you with a legally obtained gun what are my options? I can get a gun illegally, I can hire someone to kill you, I could poison you, I could use some other kind of weapon, I could stage some kind of "accident". In short, I have any number of potential ways to kill you, if I have decided I want to kill you.

The heart of this argument boils down to how many gun deaths are there simply and solely because there is a gun available? This question is nearly impossible to predict accurately because if the intent to kill is present there is no way of knowing how far that intent will go or if it will dissipate due to the minor hurdle of not having a gun on hand.

Also a gun ban would not stop gun crime because criminals will get guns if they want guns.

So what we are looking at is the minor potential to maybe prevent some domestic gun related deaths weighed against a lot of negative outcomes that are very real and it doesn't seem like a solid choice to ban guns in light of the heavily negative effects a ban would have.

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100
User voted Yes.
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2 votes,
Oct 4, 2015

"Additionally the government can now take control of every aspect of our lives with militarized police forces without threat of any rebellion because the public is disarmed."

A rebellion is not a threat to modern armies. The technology and training advantage of the Armee is huge. Public would not stay any change if the US military would decide to take over the country.

"Let's hypothesize that I want to kill you, my access to a gun or not doesn't effect the fact that I want to kill you."

Planned murder makes up only for a small minority of overall homicide. A restriction on guns helps prevent shootings which develop out of the heat of the situation and are later regretted.

"Also a gun ban would not stop gun crime because criminals will get guns if they want guns."

Yes, but a ban on gut would it much easier to identify criminals. Everyone with a gun will be a criminal (by definition). Hence criminals need to carefully hide their guns or risk getting into trouble.

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100
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1 vote,
Sep 5, 2015

I agree in fact violent crime in states that passed CCL dropped when that law was applied. FL is an excellent example when they passed there CCL law bad guys actually started to target visitors and located them based on car rental car license plates.

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0
User voted Yes.
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0 votes,
Feb 5, 2016
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0
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0 votes,
Feb 7, 2016

"Additionally the government can now take control of every aspect of our lives with militarized police forces without threat of any rebellion because the public is disarmed."

Our military has drones, Apache helicopters, bombers, Bradley tanks, rocket-propelled grenades, and lots of other stuff that would make your AR-15 or your Desert Eagle .50 cal look like a cap gun. If our government shifts toward totalitarianism, a bunch of people with rifles, pistols, and shotguns aren't going to stop it.

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0
User voted No.
0 votes,
Jul 9, 2016

Let's see how well did the military do in Vietnam? They went after the local poorly armed population in many cases, bombed, shot, burned, and still we pulled out. And yes I know there was other military support, but the armed forced were shooting at strangers, what happen when they have to start shooting at neighbors, friends?

So how about a better example, a well armed government trying to control a local population. Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign where they took the long game, fight for years, hit and run, wear the government down. Odds are that's what the fighting would look like, the government can't bomb the locals back to the stone age without hurting itself, and the harder they government would try and suppress the local population the more they would resist. So in the end if the locals took the long game, they would slowly wear down the government.

History has shown over and over again that if the local population is armed and willing to fight, they can fight a modern army to a stand standstill as long as they didn't fight a "normal" war. Yes there would be a LOT of deaths.

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0
User voted Yes.
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0 votes,
Oct 6, 2015
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100
User voted Yes.
1 vote
Oct 31, 2015

Yes, I believe so.

The data is very, very complicated, but from what I've seen, there's very little evidence of a valid gun deterrent effect while there is slight evidence of the efficacy of gun bans.

But to me, this question is rather like the question, "Can I cut down a tree with a sledgehammer?"

Sure, probably, but it's messy, excessive and not the right tool for the job.

The best ways of controlling for gun violence, as with any kind of violence, is to deal with socioeconomic and racial inequality and resentment, have appropriate conflict-resolution systems and mental health screening and treatment, and otherwise control the roots of those problems. The sociological evidence is very strong on that front.

Targeted gun regulations would ideally let us keep a reasonable deterrent value from guns while also making it very difficult for guns to be used for criminal ends.

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75
opinion
4 votes
Sep 5, 2015

The trouble with any "ban on guns" is that it would do nothing to eliminate the millions of guns already in circulation. Unless that issue is also take care of in some way, then banning guns will do little to affect homicides in the short term.

However, almost every other civilized country in the world has proven that a society without guns tends to be a society which has a lot less homicides. Violence will never disappear, and assault will never magically stop, however having access to a gun elevates an argument, or an assault, or a domestic dispute, into a potentially life threatening situation Likewise, a person who attempts suicide using a gun is 80% likely to kill themselves, whereas virtually all other suicide attempts have (on average) only about a 20% success rate. Hence access to a gun is much more likely to turn a suicide attempt into death.

Likewise, a moment of road rage, or drunken stupidity, seems to regularly turn a moment of anger into a shooting.

So Yes, a gun ban would almost certainly reduce homicide attempt rate as has been shown worldwide, however in America it would be impossible to implement anyway.

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-1
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1 vote,
Sep 5, 2015

"a society without guns tends to be a society which has a lot less homicides"

This is a mirage that I have started to challenge.

Did you know that personal gun ownership is legal in the UK? Completely allowed. I think this paints a way for US citizens, who have a constitution that protects the right of self-defense, to consider how our laws can be improved, without going so far as the gun ownership rights that are protected in the UK.

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50
User voted No.
2 votes,
Sep 10, 2015

What about the right to carry a firearm? Because last I was aware that was taken away and crime skyrocketed. The police went from carrying a baton (forget correct term for it) to wanting MP5Ks. Only allowed to have it in the home and when doing allowed activities. Gun control isn't about gun control it is about people control. I thought the US was "the land of the free?"

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
Feb 5, 2016
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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
Oct 4, 2015
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-1
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1 vote,
Sep 5, 2015

You have no facts to back that up in fact I will tell you about two such locations that killed millions. Germany 1938, and USSR under Stalin and Stalin killed more than Hitler.

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0
User voted Yes.
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0 votes,
Feb 5, 2016

Anyone who would propose a gun ban would also propose gun eliminate.

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0
User voted No.
0 votes
Sep 5, 2015

I said no. Why would I say that? Think about it a second...

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0
0 votes
Sep 5, 2015

No more than requiring women to dress with everything covered would reduce Rape.

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes
Oct 5, 2015
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0
User voted No.
0 votes
May 6, 2016

Banning weapons would not reduce the homicide attempt rate because pulling out an AK47 in the public and shooting someone in an area of banned weapons is still like when you do not ban weapons and someone pulls out an AK47 in public.

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0
User voted No.
0 votes
Jan 15, 2017

No, but it WOULD be illegal - so lets look at it from that side.

The constitution plainly states (no matter HOW politicians try to twist the words) that the American people have a right to own, AND CARRY, weapons ("A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

There can be no "ban" unless of course the American government was turned into another for, of government

As far as reducing the homicide rate - I'd strongly recommend thinking about why there is a homicide rate, and once you do, work towards removing the reasons for homicidal thoughts rather than how to accomplish said goal.

or is that a little to "logicy" for you?

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