Liberal conclusions
- Thread starter Ladoga
- Start date
It is an interesting thought, given the reason Chicago has that number of homicides stems from people carrying guns. If carrying guns prevented violence, wars would be mighty boring wouldn't they?
I have no problem with responsible people acting responsibly with guns. The problem we get into is how to determine that. We can't even ask simple questions to know if a person even understands how to responsibly own a gun. Any yahoo with a quick temper can walk in and buy a gun (assuming no convictions). Anyone who thinks owning a gun is the same as owning a squirt gun can walk in and buy a gun. How often do we hear of children grabbing unattended weapons and killing themselves or someone else (or the parent who thought it was cute to hand their gun to their toddler and film them playing with it).
I suspect Ladoga you are responsible. I suspect we both agree that there are plenty of people buying guns who are a total menace. I know, I see those people driving and if they can't operate a gun better than their car they shouldn't own one. They shouldn't own a car either, but that is another debate. If those people screw up and kill themselves trying to do something stupid, that's too bad for their families. Unfortunately too often more than just them get hurt.
I saw where a security guard, a retired deputy of 35 years, was working security at a school and accidentally left his gun in the bathroom. Fortunately it was a teacher that found it. A school security guard in Colorado was putting his gun away in his glovebox when it discharged and hit a student. No one is 100% perfect. But we should make sure that if someone owns a gun and they screw up, there is some penalty.
Going back a debate, I liked what General Honore said about arming recruiters. Just more guns isn't a panacea that will solve violence. How do we separate people who know what they are doing from those who are idiots (that includes criminals and yahoos)? That is the question for solving the problem.
I have no problem with responsible people acting responsibly with guns. The problem we get into is how to determine that. We can't even ask simple questions to know if a person even understands how to responsibly own a gun. Any yahoo with a quick temper can walk in and buy a gun (assuming no convictions). Anyone who thinks owning a gun is the same as owning a squirt gun can walk in and buy a gun. How often do we hear of children grabbing unattended weapons and killing themselves or someone else (or the parent who thought it was cute to hand their gun to their toddler and film them playing with it).
I suspect Ladoga you are responsible. I suspect we both agree that there are plenty of people buying guns who are a total menace. I know, I see those people driving and if they can't operate a gun better than their car they shouldn't own one. They shouldn't own a car either, but that is another debate. If those people screw up and kill themselves trying to do something stupid, that's too bad for their families. Unfortunately too often more than just them get hurt.
I saw where a security guard, a retired deputy of 35 years, was working security at a school and accidentally left his gun in the bathroom. Fortunately it was a teacher that found it. A school security guard in Colorado was putting his gun away in his glovebox when it discharged and hit a student. No one is 100% perfect. But we should make sure that if someone owns a gun and they screw up, there is some penalty.
Going back a debate, I liked what General Honore said about arming recruiters. Just more guns isn't a panacea that will solve violence. How do we separate people who know what they are doing from those who are idiots (that includes criminals and yahoos)? That is the question for solving the problem.
The Chicago situation is not about responsible people or irresponsible people getting guns legally. Its about violent people, often gang affiliated, getting illegal weapons illegally. The only law that could stop that is a very long sentence for any illegal violent use of a weapon in a crime. No exceptions, no plea bargains, no bond. Conviction and prison until they are very old.
It not legal guns in the hands of non-criminals that is ever any kind of problem at all.
But the anti-2nd amendment crowd seems to think laws matter to criminals. The same crowd think it matters to illegal entry to the country. That's naïve or dishonest.
Unfortunately, that's just not true. People commit violence with legal guns all the time, such as the recent shooting in Louisiana.
"All the time" is an overstatement. You are correct it does happen but based on the numbers it is very rare. The problem is things like Louisiana get all the press compared to the thousands who are murdered "unnoticed".
Here's the thing. It's true that most crimes that involve guns involve illegal guns. This is because a significant portion of gun crimes are gang-related. However, legally-purchased guns are also used for crimes, usually just not for premeditated ones.
I have not seen any trustworthy data that tells us exactly how many gun crimes in the U.S. are committed using legally-purchased guns, but I did find some guns rights advocates who claimed that only 6% of gun crimes are committed with legal guns. They had numbers to back it up, but didn't properly cite where they got the numbers. But if we accept that number as accurate, then plugging 6% into the FBI's crime data means that each year, a little more than 500 murders and about 8,000 aggravated assaults are committed with legally purchased guns each year. I'd wager that the vast majority of those crimes are domestic violence situations.
So, no, legal guns don't cause most of the violence, and the vast majority of legal guns will never be violently used, but let's not pretend that these crimes are rare. On average, more than one person is getting killed with a legal firearm every single day and two dozen more are being threatened, shot at, or shot and injured.
I guess the point is the United States has a lot of violence. We're becoming less violent over time, but the numbers are still very high. And even if most of that violence can't be tied to legal guns, there's still going to be enough left over for the legal gun owners to have their fair share. That's the mathematical reality of living in a violent nation.
I have not seen any trustworthy data that tells us exactly how many gun crimes in the U.S. are committed using legally-purchased guns, but I did find some guns rights advocates who claimed that only 6% of gun crimes are committed with legal guns. They had numbers to back it up, but didn't properly cite where they got the numbers. But if we accept that number as accurate, then plugging 6% into the FBI's crime data means that each year, a little more than 500 murders and about 8,000 aggravated assaults are committed with legally purchased guns each year. I'd wager that the vast majority of those crimes are domestic violence situations.
So, no, legal guns don't cause most of the violence, and the vast majority of legal guns will never be violently used, but let's not pretend that these crimes are rare. On average, more than one person is getting killed with a legal firearm every single day and two dozen more are being threatened, shot at, or shot and injured.
I guess the point is the United States has a lot of violence. We're becoming less violent over time, but the numbers are still very high. And even if most of that violence can't be tied to legal guns, there's still going to be enough left over for the legal gun owners to have their fair share. That's the mathematical reality of living in a violent nation.
One murder per day in a country of over 300 million is essentially negligible.
VanPastorMan
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You are a lawyer so let me ask you since you are in the legal field. How much crime is directly or indirectly linked to drugs? Could it be that drugs is the main problem in our society and not drugs? Perhaps people are more violent because they are doing them,selling them, stealing to get money to buy them. Thx in advance.
That's a tough one. None of this happens in a vacuum. If we could stop the drug trade, would violence go down? Probably. But it would also go down if we simply legalized and regulated drugs, most likely, as well. And it would probably go down if we made it harder to get guns. Let's not forget that a large number of illegal guns, probably the vast majority, started out as legal guns, but were stolen. The illegal gun trade depends very heavily on the legal gun trade.
You know what else we could do? Something about poor education and poverty in the inner cities.
Ultimately, a lot of the gun violence happens because you have people who live in really shitty conditions doing dangerous things to survive, and making guns pretty easily available to them. Anyone who says, "Oh, it's all the guns' fault," or, "Oh, it's all the drugs' fault," I think is severely missing the point.
There has, IMO, been a desensitization of life that has taken place. I offer no facts or links, and it is strictly my opinion.
its impossible to prevent all murders. just like it's impossible to achieve 0% unemployment.
That was the point. Not that murder is ok.
It's possible to cut down on murders, though. If we did ban gun ownership, for example, the number of people killed in domestic violence situations would go down, for example. We know this, because the presence of a gun greatly increases the odds that a domestic conflict will turn deadly. That's one of the few questions on this issue for which we actually have solid data.
Of course, I don't actually support a nationwide ban on gun ownership, but I don't think it's right to just say, "The number is negligible," and shrug it off.
We can't prevent all murders, but murder is such a heinous act, that we should look at ways to reduce them.
Ok. But based on someone else's data, there is appx. 1.3 murders per day with legal guns. I'm saying it's impossible to lower that number without taking unrealistic, drastic, unnecessary measures, such as banning guns nationwide. And would it bring that 1.3 number to 0? Wel, technically yes bc those murders would now be moved over to the murdered with illegal weapons statistic. But it's not the answer.
I hate typing on a phone.
True. But remember why I brought it up to begin with. Someone claimed that legal gun owners were never "any kind of problem at all." I simply pointed out this isn't true. Even if illegal guns are the majority of the problem, legal gun owners still do commit a lot of violent crimes. I don't think the proper solution is to ban all guns, but I want us to at least be honest about the facts.
"You know what else we could do? Something about poor education and poverty in the inner cities."
What do you propose we do about poor education in inner cities? Keep in mind that we spend more per student on education than virtually any other country yet we don't get better, and in many cases we get worse results. So the problem obviously isn't lack of funding. With that premise in mind, what would you propose? Every proposal I see from Democrats to improve education involves additional funding, which has been proven doesn't improve education.
How do we spend less money and educate our kids better like other countries seem to be able to do?
What do you propose we do about poor education in inner cities? Keep in mind that we spend more per student on education than virtually any other country yet we don't get better, and in many cases we get worse results. So the problem obviously isn't lack of funding. With that premise in mind, what would you propose? Every proposal I see from Democrats to improve education involves additional funding, which has been proven doesn't improve education.
How do we spend less money and educate our kids better like other countries seem to be able to do?
We spent a shit ton of money on the war on drugs, and that didn't help, either. I'm just saying the problem of violence in poor communities is a complicated one.
I dont care if 2 gangsters arw shooting each other up... but we need more thorough background checks for legally purchased guns. The mental cases usually aren't buying guns through the streets, but through a legal deal. Let's stop the mass shootings where truly innocent people are killed.
Get better parents. Maybe we can offer money for sterlization? We can do this not only in inner cities, but maybe free booze for rednecks?
I read somewhere that alcohol is involved in a lot of gun deaths. Haven't been able to find that stat again.
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