Some facts about guns in the US

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Because the high crime rate areas need the gun control laws.

When you look at number of guns per person vs gun violence in developed countries it's almost a 1:1 relationship.

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I want a Kentucky Rifle. Or a blunderbuss.

 

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I would say there's strict gun control laws BECAUSE of high murder rates in those areas.

Why would the areas with low murder rates begin to enact stricter gun control without any precedence. Once more acts of gun violence occur, then there would be more public support for gun control leading to more gun control laws passing.

I don't subscribe to the idea that gun violence in wholly due to how many guns are in the region, but there is no gun violence without a gun.

 

One can obtain anything that is illegal on the black market. The black market benefits by prohibitions, since prohibitions eliminate all legal competition while giving the black market a tax free niche within a booming underground economy. I often wonder how black marketeers kick money back to the politicians who write the laws that give them so much benefit and business. One way would be to use a legal business as a front for the kickback, so it looks kosher.

The latest proposed giveaway to the black market is guns. If this prohibition goes all the way through, the black market will gain a monopoly on guns and will be able to sell guns without any tax liability or background checks. Honest citizens will obey the law and avoid the black market. The criminals, who shop the black market, will still be able to own guns, since the rules for honest citizens do not really apply to the lawless and the black market who follow their own rules. These criminals should also kick back to the democratic politicians since this also makes their chosen profession of crime much easier to do.

 

Good thing no one is proposing that, then.

 

@SpiderGoat, I feel like you don't appreciate guns?

 

I appreciate them from a design POV, and I acknowledge their usefulness at times, but most of the modern American obsession with them has to do with feeling personally powerless.

 

Makes sense

 

Then why do states, cities, and towns that repeal gun control laws ROUTINELY see a drop in gun related crime, and crime in general? I think you have put the cart before the horse.

 

Actually, it seems that strict gun laws result from racism more than anything else. Don't want them uppity Micks to have too much power.

 

I think you probably have inverted cause and effect; gun laws are typically repealed when they are not needed, and implemented when they are.

Some stats for you:

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Where there are more guns there is more homicide (literature review).

Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40.

2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.

We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s. We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.

Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew. Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.

3. Across states, more guns = more homicide

Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten year period (1988-1997).

After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.
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If they are as ineffective in reducing violence as your stats seem to indicate, the "need" is an illusion - sort of like the need for more astrology when our government officials are making bad decisions.

As a matter of curiosity, do you have any examples of gun laws being repealed when they were no longer "needed"?

 

Responsible Gun Ownership

Responsible Gun Ownership

"How did that kid get that weapon? How did he get a loaded weapon? How did they have access to it?" —Lon Zicafoose​

A four year-old boy is dead in Michigan after he got hold of his father's gun and accidentally shot himself. This is a story that comes up all too often in these United States.

There really isn't much to say, though we might, as we offer our condolences to Deputy Mark Easter of the Jackson County Sheriff's Department and his family, pause to wonder just how this happens.

At a time when the question of gun violence is intensely political, such questions can be difficult, but if this is not the time to ask, when?

Quite simply: What constitutes a responsible gun owner?

Throughout the American gun debate, we hear two main competing arguments. On one side is the fact of gun violence in our society. On the other is the question of the Second Amendment rights of "responsible gun owners". But what is a responsible gun owner? Was a time, and it seems not so long ago, that one could chuckle about the people who make that argument wandering around, three sheets to the wind, in town streets after the men gathered to form a posse to look for an accountant who allegedly escaped his embezzlement sentence at a nearby federal prison. Or count the bullet holes (two) in the ceiling that, as legend tells, were the spawn of inexperienced attempts to assemble one's own ammunition. Or shooting the cat for pissing on a toolbox. Or needing multiple firearms to kill a possum that cornered the dog. Or ... well, I could go on, but that's all one "responsible gun owner".

But this is a problem; this responsible gun owner is a deputy sheriff, and somehow a firearm was left accessible to a child. This is not a new phenomenon. In December, the nephew of an Oklahoma deputy sheriff accidentally shot himself.

No charges were filed in Oklahoma, and it's likely we'll see none in Michigan, either.

But what are we going to do about this? What is a "responsible gun owner", and who gets to write the definition? Heaven knows, we are a nation filled with "responsible gun owners" who will resent the idea of being told how to conduct themselves and their firearms safely.
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Notes:

Edwards, David. "Michigan sheriff’s deputy’s 4-year-old son accidentally shoots and kills himself". The Raw Story. March 4, 2013. RawStory.com. March 5, 2013. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/...ld-son-accidentally-shoots-and-kills-himself/

 

Sure, the assault weapons ban.

 

The Federal assault weapons ban was not repealed, and no change in need was involved in allowing it to expire.

 

Trending: To Be or Not to Be an Intruder

Trending: To Be or Not to Be an Intruder
In fairness, it's Yakima

Apparently, it's the latest rage among responsible gun owners:

The Yakima County sheriff's office says a man mistook his pregnant wife for an intruder at their Terrace Heights home and shot her, leaving her in critical condition.

(Associated Press)​

There are more unknowns—both known unknowns and unknown unknowns, though we don't know about the unknown knowns, yet—about the story than anything else, but this is, generally, a discouraging trend. I know that things going bump in the night can be scary, but we should take the moment to remind ourselves that being more likely to accidentally shoot a household member than stop a criminal is no a talking point intended as a suggestion.
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Notes:

Associated Press. "Police: Man mistakes wife for intruder, shoots her". The Seattle Times. March 10, 2013. SeattleTimes.com. March 12, 2013. http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020528712_apwamistakenlyshootswife.html

 

Obviously you have never had children or if you have then yours were either incredibly well behaved as to be saints or so deficient as to be nonfunctional. Kids will get into things. They will find anything no matter how well you hide it. Oddly the more dangerous it is for them to get their hands on something the more skill, cunning and luck they seem to display in acquiring it. One only has to look at "child proof" caps on prescription drugs. I have a 3 year old cousin who can open them in les than ten minutes and he's the slowest at it.

Yes keep your guns where it is not readyily accessible to your children. Also teach your children from the very beginning that it is not a toy. It can't hurt to educate your children.

As for people who accidently shoot family thinking they are intruders, I have to go with common sense here. The common sense says if they did everything they could to identify the person ie turning on lights, calling out, announcing yourself, issuing warning, getting a clear line of sight then the shooter either intended to do the victim harm or vice versa. If the shooter did not try these methods then they likely were trying to harm the victim.

Taking away a person's means of defense is not going to make them safer. In fact doing so has proven to increase violent crime and death rates. Sure less people die of guns but more people die of other things: baseball bats, knives, arson, strangulation...

 

States with stricter gun laws have lower overall gun deaths AND lower overall violent deaths, on average. When you look at a map of the US, the southern states have both the most lax gun laws and the highest rates of violent deaths.

 

That appears to be false.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_by_state
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa/cause-of-death/violence/by-state/

Comparing these two lists, for example, and including DC as a State, we see that the five States with the lowest violent death rates all have less strict gun laws than most States, and of the five States with the highest violent death rates two (DC and Maryland) have more strict gun laws than most States.

Of the ten least violent States, only one - Hawaii - has stricter than average gun laws.

The rest seem mixed, the only pattern being an apparent prevalence of violent death in the old Confederacy. It is not true that lax gun laws are also concentrated in the old Confederacy - libertarian political pockets are common in the North, and are accompanied by low violent death rates there.