Another reason banning guns won't work

Brekkie wrote:For every Switzerland (almost no limits on firearms, and common ownership, with low crime) there is a Germany (extremely strict limits on firearms, very little ownership, and also low crime).

I'm pretty sure you weren't referring to it, but I'd like to point out a common Misconception about Switzerland (my home country) at this point:
Gun related crime is not 'incredibly low' in Switzerland. Gun related homicides make up almost 70% of homicides in Switzerland. It's just number of homicides is much lower than some 'high crime' countries, laws have actually just recently been changed to make military service weapons remain at the armory while soldiers return home, before all soldiers would take their assault rifles home during leave. Apparently there's been too many people running amok with their service weapon.

not trying to derail it back to WWII, but thought this was funny

It's a bit confusing though, because back then they played rock, paper, scissors with reverse rules - rock beat paper and so on.

with the help of scissors...and eh russian winter

Boyfriend wrote:

Brekkie wrote:For every Switzerland (almost no limits on firearms, and common ownership, with low crime) there is a Germany (extremely strict limits on firearms, very little ownership, and also low crime).

I'm pretty sure you weren't referring to it, but I'd like to point out a common Misconception about Switzerland (my home country) at this point:
Gun related crime is not 'incredibly low' in Switzerland. Gun related homicides make up almost 70% of homicides in Switzerland. It's just number of homicides is much lower than some 'high crime' countries, laws have actually just recently been changed to make military service weapons remain at the armory while soldiers return home, before all soldiers would take their assault rifles home during leave. Apparently there's been too many people running amok with their service weapon.

Is there a news article that describes this that I can link to all my gun nut friends who idolize Switzerland?

Ironshield wrote:On the original topic briefly, so the 2nd amendment is so that some tyrant or mad general can't take over (retain control of) the US with force. Really?? Don't they teach even the grunts about legal and illegal orders these days? Surely "impose a curfew on NYC and arrest all the gays" is going to be a difficult order to get carried out. And the ONLY time a civillian armed militia rising up is going to be any good is if they can all agree to do it... doesn't seem probable.

"If martial law was imposed and it came down to it, would you ever fire on or detain an American?" is a VERY common discussion topic on military forums.
Based on how heated the discussion gets, I think it's safe to say that there is no clear consensus in the ranks, and the military would likely turn on its self and fracture.

Which, historically, is largely what happened during the Civil War too. Political opinion in the country is very clearly divided along regional lines, just as it has always been. North+West Coast vrs South+rural Midwest.

If a "tyrant" ever arose, it wouldn't be so cut and dry. One side wouldn't see him/her as a tyrant.

If a "tyrant" ever arose, it wouldn't be so cut and dry. One side wouldn't see him/her as a tyrant.

And that's not even counting the people who can use said tyrant for their own ends.

Boyfriend wrote:I'm pretty sure you weren't referring to it, but I'd like to point out a common Misconception about Switzerland (my home country) at this point:
Gun related crime is not 'incredibly low' in Switzerland. Gun related homicides make up almost 70% of homicides in Switzerland. It's just number of homicides is much lower than some 'high crime' countries, laws have actually just recently been changed to make military service weapons remain at the armory while soldiers return home, before all soldiers would take their assault rifles home during leave. Apparently there's been too many people running amok with their service weapon.

Oh I hear ha the issued guns were easily traceable more or less IIRC but well I am not a swiss. Or were these homicides only incidents were someone lost his temper and shot his wife for example?

If a "tyrant" ever arose, it wouldn't be so cut and dry. One side wouldn't see him/her as a tyrant.

More or less, tyrants don´t rise without some popular support. The 2nd amendment is a nice idea in theory to empower the civilian populace but wouldn´t work in practice. It would have some use in asymmetrical warfare agains an invading army but well that was an issue when the US was smaller and the motherland still had a presence up north and was at leats playing in the same league militarily. Nowadays? Well who could and would want to invade the US. As said previously even if China turns out to be the military superpower in the later half of the century and the US would be on a sharp way downwards in military affairs, warfare would be a lose-lose situation for both sides. Same for other countries.

Warfare could break out if something changes drastically, like climate change driving millions out of their country or vital resources going low without counter measures in place but seems to me most powers who could be a military threat to the US will have more tempting targets in their neighbours. Well to be honest I think Mexico won´t be able to invade the US and rather go for its southern neighbours and Canada has to fear a lot more from its southern neighbour than the other way round if the circumstances ever switch to a poilitical atmosphere of every man for himself.

Sagara wrote:Short version: You spend years of sweat and blood to create to spirit to fight with a sword, while all it takes is the money and some hand-eye coordination to use a gun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os3lWIuGsXE

Not... directly related to the topic at hand, but provides some good insight into how the view of guns (and weapons in general) differs in western and eastern culture.

Gun control is something that can't be half-assed. Either nobody gets guns, or everybody gets them. That's pretty much the only way it works, IMO.

Compare gun violence per capita in Switzerland (everyone gets them), the UK (nobody gets them), and the US (we half-ass it at best).

Fivelives wrote:Compare gun violence per capita in Switzerland (everyone gets them), the UK (nobody gets them), and the US (we half-ass it at best).

This approach completely ignores demographics and culture, and I'd argue any kind of analysis of this kind is deeply flawed. Simply counting heads is ignoring a significant amount of relevant data.

Explain how it's flawed, and what relevant data it's missing?

per capita of total population vs per capita of gun owners (registered) ?

Because all criminals register their guns?

idk..i was just pulling stuff out of thin air...
still tired from my 14 bus ride

fuzzygeek wrote:

Fivelives wrote:Compare gun violence per capita in Switzerland (everyone gets them), the UK (nobody gets them), and the US (we half-ass it at best).

This approach completely ignores demographics and culture, and I'd argue any kind of analysis of this kind is deeply flawed. Simply counting heads is ignoring a significant amount of relevant data.

It's cherry-picked examples.

For example, Japan is another country where NOBODY gets guns (police can even come in your house without a warrant and make sure you don't have any guns), but violent crime (and crime in general) is EXTREMELY low.

If you look globally, there is simply zero correlation between gun ownership and crime. Gun ownership neither increases crime, nor decreases crime. For whatever variable you try to correct for (urbanization, ethnic diversity, level of income inequality, individual liberty vrs strong government intervention), no matter what you look at you can find examples for high crime rates, and for low crime rates.
The only rational way to interpret this data is that there is no causal relationship between crime and guns, either positive or negative.

But that is counter-intuitive. We like to think that there is a relationship, because it makes crime be something we can fix easily, without the uncomfortable implications about our culture being less-than-perfect. So both sides of the debate shamelessly indulge confirmation bias and cherry pick the data.

I'm looking at the correlation between gun control and gun violence here Brekkie - not just violence in general. I'd be willing to bet that there's some causal links there. I could, as always, be wrong - this is my opinion; not a fact, but it's one that I'm pretty comfortable with.

Perhaps it would be better to look at gun related accidents, gun usage by people without proper training and so on.

And well, what´s the benefit of widespread gun possession? So an untrained guy can try to defend himself against criminals entering his house hopefully? How often does it happen with a positive outcome (house owner not killed or severely injured)? How often is the house owner injured or killed by his own gun? How often does bringing a gun escalate the situation (guy who shoots first and hit wins so shoot first)) Can you actually start to shoot without hesitating too long when the situation turns sour?

We can forget about defending yourself in an armed street robbery. Whoever tries to rob you will have his weapon ready. Unless he hesitates or thinks that a wallet won´t be worth killing someone your chances are close to zero.

Fivelives wrote:I'm looking at the correlation between gun control and gun violence here Brekkie - not just violence in general. I'd be willing to bet that there's some causal links there. I could, as always, be wrong - this is my opinion; not a fact, but it's one that I'm pretty comfortable with.

I'm not sure what sort of relationship you are asserting. Obviously if someone doesn't have a gun they will be less likely to commit a gun crime. But that's kind of meaningless if they are still able to commit the same crime using different methods.

If the direction you're going with that is "Here's an example of places where they have strict gun control, and gun crimes still happen", that's still pretty weak because it's comparing apples to oranges. It is a problem of implementation, not strategy; they are just doing a bad job of enforcing the gun control. Some countries do it better than others. Depends on how intrusive a government your people are willing to tolerate.

Additionally, comparing rates of "gun crime" or crime in general gets slippery for reasons of badly defined terms.
Countries which have the mindset to have put in place strict gun control in the first place tend to have a culturally very low tolerance for violence. So they tend to define "violent crime" in dramatically different ways than other countries. When guns are largely banned, you get moving goalposts where they start calling a teenager running around with a toy gun a "gun crime". Implementation of stricter gun controls tend to be a reaction to some kind of major high profile incident, which means they tend to be associated with a simultaneous crack-down by the local law enforcement, which can equal more arrests and more convictions, inflating stats.

The statistics suffer a great deal of nonconformity and bias because of this. There is no truly neutral baseline to compare against, because every culture has their idiosyncrasies. You can find fodder for confirmation bias quite easily, no matter what stance you take. But generally when data points are all over the place like that its a sure sign of randomness and no correlation.

As far as the other reasons for having/banning guns...

It's a trade off between:
1)Accidental deaths due to mishandling/storage, the possibility of the presence of a gun in a robbery resulting in escalation of the confrontation and the criminal killing you when they wouldn't have otherwise
vrs
2)The possibility that the victim of a crime will have a gun on them, have high enough proficiency in it to be able to use it in time and effectively, and there being enough reaction time to let them use it at all.

With regards to the former, accidents and deaths due to escalation cause more fatalities than are prevented by personal ownership as a deterrent, but there's a Darwinian element where you can make a reasonable argument that your personal liberty shouldn't be restricted just to save stupid people from themselves.

As for the later, the vast majority of people who concealed carry are simply not proficient enough for it to make any difference, and their being armed is likely to backfire due to unnecessary escalation, however there is a non-zero number of lives that ARE saved because of this.



So, in balance, it comes down to whether you feel that A)a few smart, responsible people's lives being saved is worth more than B)a slightly higher number of dumb, irresponsible people dying unnecessarily, or not.

Personally, if I was dictator and omnipotent, I'd ban all guns except for sanctioned usage, but realistically it would be too hard in America. It's pointless unless you do an all-or-nothing. So the cost-benefit analysis just isn't enough to bother trying to make an issue out of it. Guns in America are safe for the foreseeable future.

Brekkie wrote:Is there a news article that describes this that I can link to all my gun nut friends who idolize Switzerland?

Concerning anti-gun movement gaining steam recently in Switzerland:

http://www.thelocal.ch/page/view/2215#.UMXG84OBeHM

Guy going amok with his service weapon about 10 years ago in Switzerland:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/date ... 539769.stm

A more thorough discussion on Guns & Homicides in Switzerland (as compared to other European countries):

http://www.rwi.uzh.ch/lehreforschung/al ... erland.pdf

To summarize the publication, while criminal gun usage is hardly affected by gun laws (most guns used in this context being illegal) Switzerland has a very high rate of lethal escalation in domestic disputes compared to other European countries which the authors strongly link to gun ownership, and there's been many cases in the news recently. The second statistic they associate with gun ownership is suicides. They mention male suicide rate dropping as Switzerland has been reducing number of males enrolled in the military (and thus service weapons in homes).

The paper also discusses gun use in self defense, and based on their legal documents there's only been 6 cases of legitimate use of guns in self defense in Switzerland within the past 20 years (another 9 of these cases it was police officers on duty citing self defense, for a total of 15 cases of gun-homicides due to self defense).

Even though this is an argument I'd prefer to stay out of;

@Brekkie, second amendment aside (lets not get into why and what it was created for and what it actually says - especially the first 4 words), when did gun ownership become a personal liberty? And if it is, why do we not consider the ownership of High Explosives a personal liberty ("I like to blow things up - safely") or any other potentially deadly item?

The big problem I see with arguing for (or high explosives, or whatever in that scale)guns as a personal liberty, is that guns have no other usage than to kill. Hunters have a legitimate need to kill (as does the military etc). Second amendment aside, noone else has a legitimate need to own an implement purely meant for killing.

(The same argument can be made of some archaic weapons, of which the only real counterargument woould be that the archaity itself was an attraction - like a sword collection).

Now I'm all for regulating, and not overregulating;
Example, in Denmark we have a "knifelaw" that mandates a minimum sentence of 7 days served if you are carrying a knife without a laudable purpose - some examples that came up in the media was someone getting convicted for having a box cutter in their car (it could be extended and "locked" in position - nevermind that it would break off if you tried using it as a weapon), because thay had needed it the day before and forgot to take it out.

[quote=Brekkie]It's pointless unless you do an all-or-nothing.[/quote]

Pretty sure that's what I said earlier?

Fivelives wrote:Explain how it's flawed, and what relevant data it's missing?

Perhaps it is needed for self defense and most of the owners had registered there guns.