How to Solve The Gun Problem in USA 101 - an European perspective (generations, FBI)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The sole beneficiary of a disarmed public is the predator.
If you can guarantee that predators will not prey on the weak and disarmed, then by all means disarm yourself.
Abolishing liberty to "prevent crime" only abolishes liberty, not crime.
You are correct. It is a socioeconomic problem. It is also a gun problem. You continue to characterize the socioeconomic problem as one that affects blacks mainly. Actually, you are wrong. In 2012 there were something like 8800 gun homicides. Lets say 7700 of those were black-black. That's still 1100 white-white homicides. Hardly insignificant. But wait, there's more. In the same year there were 20,000 gun suicides of which perhaps 18 were black men. That just flat out flabbergasts me and I'm not white. If you don't think that 20,000 people topping themselves (and the rate is rising) in a year is a socioeconomic problem of some severity then I don't know what to tell you. The gang-bangers have surely gone to a better place than the ghetto was. The kid that just came back from a deployment in Afghanistan to find that his old lady is now "friends" with his old high school buddy is sitting in his room with his Glock in his hand. Did we really need to send him off to war at 23 years of age? That middle manager who has been unable to find work since Intel closed down his division and moved it to India. He is about to put his grand-fathers Luger to his head and end the shame. He was contracted to Intel. He held up his end of the contract...
You can't tell me that removing guns from American society (while we work on winning the Class War for the Middle Class) won't have a positive effect on the suicide rate. The very determined will still find a way. A halving of the suicide rate would still be a stupendous gain for America.
I believe someone so desperate to off themselves would simply use another method. I had a buddy have all his guns confiscated because he was a suicide risk. Guess what, he just OD'd on pain killers and booze one night.
You do know that the comparisons are made more fair by citing per capita aggregates right? Its a valid enough way of making a comparison. There is no rationalizing away the completely off the chain gun violence statistics of the U.S.
The stat you don't get is per capita per capita. Roseburg was recently all over the news for a mass shooting at UCC, but people here are still not interested in gun control. The reason is that there is no defense against insanity. The actual statistics tell a different story. Outside of UCC, there was a double homicide in 2015 in this county. It was a stabbing. There were no homicides in 2014.
This is in a county where the number of firearms far exceed the population. I'm rural, but every neighbor I know owns at least one firearm. The only problem comes from kids who sometimes aren't careful what they are shooting at, but neighbors coach them and they grow out of it. They end up just like their parents, with childhood memories of hunting and target practicing, and finding that first .22 under the Christmas tree.
In 2013 there was a shooting death on a neighbor's property. It was a state police officer who was deer hunting. He shot at a deer, missed, and the bullet carried on and killed his daughter. It was a terrible tragedy, but not a political issue. Nobody tried to ban firearms because of it.
My state recently passed universal background checks for all transfers, private and commercial. I don't expect they will get much in the way of compliance, since most private transfers are between people who know each other. Why do a background check when you know the person? Our county sheriff took a lot of heat after the UCC shooting because he was on record that he would not enforce a private transfer law. It seemed incomprehensible to people who live in high density urban areas, but private gun sales are not a public safety problem here. Guns are not a public safety issue here. That's true of the majority of America, no matter what you see on the TV news. They don't go out to find footage of nothing happening.
Europe is not immune to mass shootings either. Remember the 67 killed in Norway? 12 shot dead at Charlie Hebdo? How did those people still get weapons?
I'm moderate on gun rights. As the constitution says it should be regulated. I don't want everyone being able to buy suitcase nukes at Wal Mart. I support background checks. But there is no system that will prevent all mass killings.
The vast majority of USA gun deaths are non White criminals killing other non White criminals. They chose the lifestyle knowing the risks.
While it's true that nowhere is perfect, I think it's a mistake to buy into the "government by anecdote" tactics of the gun control crowd.
I feel perfectly safe in my community. I have a concealed weapons permit and do NOT carry a firearm...because I feel safe. I'm not going to lie, there are scary places to be in the US, but most people don't live there.
Gang violence is an issue, but for the average citizen they will never encounter this in their daily travels. The unfortunate victims here are the familys of the gangs that live in the area that they constantly fight over. So unless you like to hang out on tough street corners at 2AM or other sketchy parts of major urban towns, you'll probably never see this violence first hand.
I am aware that criminal / gang violent activity is usually segregated in specific neighborhoods and is mainly "thug-on-thug".
Does this make the problem somehow better? It doesn't.
It's a shame that many of the US bigger cities have so many no-go zones, and some of them are literally a chessboard regarding crime where you are not always sure if you'll be safe turning the next corner, especially if you're not familiar with the area (i.e. Atlanta,Charlotte,Philadelphia,Houston). Again this doesn't happen in other first world countries, violent crime can still lurk everywhere but not at the level that US cities exhibit and, seriously, usually the most it can happen in most European and Asian big cities if you're unlucky enough is a desperate whimpy looking gipsy threatening you with a knife - being in a dangerous situation in the US means being held at gun point or too close to a shooting: big difference.
And even if the city where you live is mostly safe, why simply accepting for example that South Chicago is a no-go zone when, without easy access to guns for criminals in the country, the city and people could slowly but surely invest and move in that area and make ALL Chicago the city it deserves to be?
Yeah "people kill people", but it's especially "people with guns" that easily kill people.
Remove guns and ammos from the equation, banning them from all househoulds and stores - giving no chance for the thugs, criminals and desperate to easily buy / steal / traffic and find them practically anywhere in the US territory, and violent crime will be drastically reduced, at least on par with the rest of the first world.
Will still be a socioeconomic divide / problem? Yes, this is another issue entirely.
Will your average thug still have easy access to a loaded gun after a few years of gun banning? Way less likely.
Will still be there unsafe neighborhoods? Sure, but running away from a knife is sure as hell easier than running away from a gun.
All in all gun-advocates have everything to lose from their stance: more dangerous cities for their families, the paranoia but the true need of having to research and move to a "safe" (and more expensive) neighborhood (you are all "guilty" of this on CD) every time you decide to move to a big city in an age where affordable housing is starting to become a problem and the middle-class is shrinking, and wages and stable income opportunities are decreasing.
Really, gun advocates, what will happen when / if you, or your graduate son in this increasingly desperate job market, will not be able to afford the "safe" big city areas anymore and will stop living the dreamy middle-class life? You will still simply accept that your usually localized crime and your usually thug-on-thug shootings are not a big deal and part of a normal life in a first world country, which is not?
Last edited by TheDeltaOrionis; 11-03-2015 at 01:18 PM..
You are correct. It is a socioeconomic problem. It is also a gun problem. You continue to characterize the socioeconomic problem as one that affects blacks mainly. Actually, you are wrong. In 2012 there were something like 8800 gun homicides. Lets say 7700 of those were black-black. That's still 1100 white-white homicides. Hardly insignificant. But wait, there's more. In the same year there were 20,000 gun suicides of which perhaps 18 were black men. That just flat out flabbergasts me and I'm not white. If you don't think that 20,000 people topping themselves (and the rate is rising) in a year is a socioeconomic problem of some severity then I don't know what to tell you. The gang-bangers have surely gone to a better place than the ghetto was. The kid that just came back from a deployment in Afghanistan to find that his old lady is now "friends" with his old high school buddy is sitting in his room with his Glock in his hand. Did we really need to send him off to war at 23 years of age? That middle manager who has been unable to find work since Intel closed down his division and moved it to India. He is about to put his grand-fathers Luger to his head and end the shame. He was contracted to Intel. He held up his end of the contract...
You can't tell me that removing guns from American society (while we work on winning the Class War for the Middle Class) won't have a positive effect on the suicide rate. The very determined will still find a way. A halving of the suicide rate would still be a stupendous gain for America.
No, suicide is not a socioeconomic problem, it is a basic human right that no government has ever succeeded in removing. People who want to forbid a convenient means of suicide are arrogant beyond belief. That statistic for gun suicides is perhaps the most persuasive argument for gun ownership that it is possible to make in an urban environment.
Eastern Europe, in particular, has varying rates of gun ownership, with no strong correlation to murder rates: (Click to enlarge)
EU-wide gun sales law is similar to US Federal law, including provisions making it unlawful for residents of one state to travel to another state to acquire and bring back arms in violation of their state of residence.
Europe, with varying levels of gun control, is not the gun free or violence free utopia you claim it to be. Many studies suggest that parts of Europe where they have successfully disarmed the victims, violent crimes, including rape, have increased. Is violent crime acceptable as long as both the victim and criminal are disarmed?
Why do you advocate for changing the US constitution to make it easier for violent criminals to ply their trade against the weak, when that hasn't made Europe safer, and arguably has made it more dangerous for the law-abiding than the US is for the law-abiding?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDeltaOrionis
I am aware that criminal / gang violent activity is usually segregated in specific neighborhoods and is mainly "thug-on-thug". Does this make the problem somehow better? It doesn't. It's a shame that many of the US bigger cities have so many no-go zones, and some of them are literally a chessboard regarding crime where you are not always sure if you'll be safe turning the next corner, especially if you're not familiar with the area (i.e. Atlanta, Charlotte,Philadelphia,Houston). Again this doesn't happen in other first world countries, crime can still lurk everywhere but not at the level that US cities exhibit and, seriously, the most it can happen in most European and Asian cities is a gipsy threatening you with a knife.
Once again, these claims are based on false impressions given by the media, not the reality of life in the USA.
In the USA, for the vast majority of the country, an average non-drug-using American's chance of being the victim of a violent crime is lower than the average non-drug-using European's chance of being a victim of a violent crime. It's okay for people in Europe to be victimized, as long as nobody gets shot?
Quote:
Yeah "people kill people", but it's especially "people with guns" that kill people. Remove guns and ammos from the equation, banning them from all househoulds and stores - giving no chance for the thugs, criminals and desperate to easily buy / steal / traffic and find them practically anywhere in the US territory, and violent crime will be drastically reduced, at least on par with the rest of the first world.
You keep making the claim that "violent crime will be drastically reduced", but I have yet to see you back up the claim that removing firearms reduces overall violent crime rates. It is much more likely that if idealists like yourself manage to disarm the victims, American violent crime would increase to levels seen in Europe. You are advocating to make it easier for violent criminals to victimize law-abiding Americans, with no overall benefit to the majority of Americans.
You claim "guns" are the root cause, but fail to explain the US states where the non-firearms homicide rate is greater than the total homicide rate in the best parts of Europe. Or how several of the safest US states have lower violent crime rates and lower murder rates than many parts of Europe, yet these US states have no significant restrictions on firearms possession and use?
It's almost as if there's something else about "Atlanta, Charlotte,Philadelphia,Houston" which directly drives their violent crime rates, something unrelated to legal firearms, and which disarming the victims would not change, except to make life safer for the criminals.
Yeah "people kill people", but it's especially "people with guns" that easily kill people. Remove guns and ammos from the equation, banning them from all househoulds and stores - giving no chance for the thugs, criminals and desperate to easily buy / steal / traffic and find them practically anywhere in the US territory, and violent crime will be drastically reduced, at least on par with the rest of the first world.
Will still be a socioeconomic divide / problem? Yes, this is another issue entirely.
Will your average thug still have easy access to a loaded gun after a few years of gun banning? Way less likely.
Will still be there unsafe neighborhoods? Sure, but running away from a knife is sure as hell easier than running away from a gun.
Banning guns will work about as well as banning drugs.
More to the point, we have a Natural Right to self defense. That includes the use of lethal force. I've been to Europe and this concept is often completely alien to them.
And if you want to ban all guns you will be required to create and maintain a police state to enforce it. And most Americans will not comply. What will you do then? Go door to door, room to room? That's a great way to start a civil war.
OP: Let this sink in, in another format if you prefer - having access to guns doesn't make you safer, is exactly what gives the "thug" the chance to kill your family if he wants to, with the gun he stole the other day from your neighbor
Your premise is false. Having a gun does make me safer. Even if all guns in the US disappeared overnight, there would be guns in the US in less than 24 hours (probably less than 24 minutes). They would come from Mexico, they would come in from arms dealers, and enterprising criminals would make zip guns in their garages.
I would not move to a foreign country and expect them to change their laws and culture to appease me. I suggest you do the same.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Europe has not managed to eliminate legal ownership of firearms, yet you expect USA to do so for your pleasure?
(Click to enlarge)