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DOTD - Debate of The Day #52
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Post by
FatalHeaven
That sort of begs the question - how do you casually stroll into a movie theatre with an assault rifle in your backpack?
If your referring to the recent tragedy in Aurora I believe it was reported he had stashed his weapons and body armor just outside the emergency exit door.
This. Thats the report I saw too. That he went in like a normal movie-goer than he exited the theatre and reentered via emergency exit door.
Post by
Adamsm
#34: Would stricter gun laws lower crime?As the others have said; No, since a person planning a criminal activity will still find a way to acquire a gun legally or illegally.
Post by
Nathanyal
Isn't that law in existence anyway (sort of)? As far as i know, it's legal to own a gun in the US, but not to walk around with it, only to keep at home or in a store or something.
Gun law is a complex thing. I wish I knew more about it. I don't because of lack of experience.
I know there are permits to carry a weapon. I know there are permits to carry the weapon, and have it hidden. The shooting at the movie really got me thinking about things, I think I'll do some reading on the laws that are out there tomorrow. Must sleep now though.
Cheers,
Hat
Yes it is complex. But you can carry one on you if you have a permit to do so.
This
may be able to help some. There is quite a lot to read, mainly because laws vary from state to state.
There are also more articles about
Firearm Legality
.
Post by
Squishalot
That sort of begs the question - how do you casually stroll into a movie theatre with an assault rifle in your backpack?
If your referring to the recent tragedy in Aurora I believe it was reported he had stashed his weapons and body armor just outside the emergency exit door.
This. Thats the report I saw too. That he went in like a normal movie-goer than he exited the theatre and reentered via emergency exit door.
That still doesn't explain how he got to a position where he was leaving weaponry and body armor lying around in a public area, or how he got to that area in the first place. I'm sure there's decent ways to hide things if necessary, but it just seems absurd that nobody noticed something was amiss. That's the whole point of concealed vs non-concealed weapon permits, isn't it?
Post by
331902
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I think it's a correct statement to say career criminals will be criminals regardless of the law, but a lot of people who commit a violent crime, or a crime through negligence are not career criminals. A gang member, a meticulous psychopath, a member organized crime, etc. will always be able to get guns, regardless of laws. An angry office clerk, troubled teen or drunk moron who gets it in his head to rob a liquor store might not. I think that it would have a huge impact on non-premeditated crime if there were stricter gun laws- less people who in the spur of the moment take a gun that was bought for non-criminal purposes and do something horrible with it. Or, at the very least they'd go at it with much less effective weapons.
The issue with Washington DC is that it's one city in a country where it's legal to buy guns. They're not patrolling the city limits looking for illegal imports, and there's no passport checks to get in. It's not the same kind of barrier as a national ban would be, and much less enforceable in terms of keeping guns from entering the city.
If there were tighter gun laws, the cost would be higher and the availability would be lower, too, even for career criminals. It's much easier and cost effective to organize a break into wal-mart or a sporting goods store, an hour away, to get some guns illegally than it is to find contacts to import them to you from South America. It's a lot harder to forge paperwork for weapons being transported if there is no legal way they could be being transported that you could try to fake.
Finally, I think that non-criminal deaths would be reduced too. 50% of suicides in the US are by gun, and it's one of the more effective methods. It's much more likely you'll survive an overdose of pills, a jump off a bridge or slitting your wrists than a gunshot wound to the head. I think it would cut down on the number of successful suicides, if not suicide attempts. Per Wikipedia, one child dies from an accidental gunshot wound every 3 days in the US. That's not counting adult accidental deaths, or non-fatal accidental shootings.
I think that looking at just violent career criminals, or incidents like the ones in Aurora or Columbine, it may be that a change in the gun laws wouldn't have that much of an effect. In terms of non-habitual offenders, and accidental deaths, though, I think it would have a huge impact. And even for career criminals, I think if they were illegal to bring into the country, rather than just licensed but still available within a 20 minute drive wherever you are, you'd have a much smaller pool that the criminals had access to, and it would be much more expensive for them to get guns.
The USA has an intentional homicide rate 5-10 times that (per capita) of most Eurpoean countries where civilian firearm use is greatly restricted, or illegal.
Source
I wouldn't say that we're 5-10X more violent individuals, but that people who are not habitual criminals have access to greater ability to do harm in a short period of time (as in a fit of emotion) with a gun than without one, and the number of homicides is much higher as a result.
Post by
MyTie
As far as i know, it's legal to own a gun in the US, but not to walk around with it, only to keep at home or in a store or something.
Depends on where you are in the US, as local and state laws vary. Here in my part of Oregon, I can strap two assault rifles on my back, two revolvers in each hip revolver, several belts of ammunition, and carry a shotgun in one hand and an open bottle of jack daniels in the other, while I walk down the road. Perfectly legal.
Gun crimes aren't always committed by hardcore criminals (i.e. those who would break the gun laws because they're breaking the law anyway) - there are going to be incidents where someone wants to vent their frustrations, and who may be dissuaded from doing so by the absence of a firearm (or alternatively, may be encouraged to do so by the presence of a firearm).Yeah. I could see this as possible. Usually gun violence is not some sort of isolated crime by someone who snaps.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I'd actually be interested in seeing numbers on what percentage of people who commit a gun crime do so as their first offense, or first major offense (not counting parking tickets, DUI, urinating in public, etc.)
Post by
MyTie
I'd actually be interested in seeing numbers on what percentage of people who commit a gun crime do so as their first offense, or first major offense (not counting parking tickets, DUI, urinating in public, etc.)
I dug this up pretty quick: Of 1,662 murders committed in New York City during 2003-2005, more than 90% were committed by people with criminal records.
source
Post by
Rankkor
Well, Venezuela has some of the most strict Gun Control laws EVER (Civilians can't buy anything larger than a pistol, and even getting the pistol is absurdly hard, not only because they ask you a billion papers, but also because the gun itself costs a fortune, no less than 6 million bolivares, and the ammunition is just as expensive, over 10000 bolivares per bullet, and the permission to fire the weapon is equally expensive and has to be renovated every month)
Would this mean crime is lower? nope, Venezuela has the third highest crime rate in south america (only toppled by Mexico, and Nicaragua), and every year thousands of people die in gunshot related crimes all the time. Legally you can't buy a weapon, but illegally is dirt easy to get one, and the only ones benefiting from this restriction is the criminals, who are making a fortune selling people weapons they are not trained to use and will thus only harm themselves with them.
I read a story in the news paper a couple of months ago, of a 57 year old woman who bought a sawed-off shotgun for "self-defense" then one day she gets mugged, pulls the shotgun aims and......................... not only she missed, the recoil and backblast of the shotgun dislocated her shoulder, and caused her a head injury when she fell to the ground. To make matters worse, not only the mugger got her stuff anyways, he also took the gun. Way to go granny, you just gave a mugger a sawed-off shotgun............
You would think that with a gun control this strict (The government really hates it to have armed civilians, it risks for insurrections to be more likely if people actually have firearms) crime rates, or at least incidents related to guns would be lower, but nope, they are not.
Venezuela is one of the most violent crime-ridden countries on this side of the world, and the only reason countries like Mexico and the US have a bigger death-toll ratio is because they have larger populations (200 million people on the US, 140+ million on Mexico, vs 25 Million in Venezuela).
TL;DR: Gun Control Laws DO NOT WORK.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
@My-Tie - Right, but New York city is a No-issue jurisdiction in one of the states with the strictest gun laws in the country. I was more wondering about areas where the non-criminals were allowed to carry firearms.
@Rank- those numbers are given per capita, which means it's the number of deaths per thousand people who live there. It's not a higher number because there are more people- it's a higher percentage of people. In the case of Venezuela, I agree that it's much worse there- your homicide rate per capita is about 10 times ours. However, your country's government is also one of the most corrupt in the world, from what you have told me, and so gun laws that you can buy your way around aren't really that effective.
And your one anecdote showed that the gun she had did more harm than good, didn't it?
Post by
Haxzor
Rank, you seem to have biased info there. Gun Control Laws work fine here and NZ
Post by
MyTie
Here is a
NYT article
about how ineffective the data gathered is at determining whether gun control measures are effective.@My-Tie - Right, but New York city is a No-issue jurisdiction in one of the states with the strictest gun laws in the country. I was more wondering about areas where the non-criminals were allowed to carry firearms.
It's tough to find something that says it definitely is that way in certain places, that specific, but everything I'm finding is pointing toward it being the case...
example
... I'll keep looking. See if you can find anything.
Post by
168916
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
It's tough to find something that says it definitely is that way in certain places, that specific, but everything I'm finding is pointing toward it being the case... example... I'll keep looking. See if you can find anything.
That source suggests that 30% of crimes are committed by non-repeat / less frequent offenders.
I'd actually be interested in seeing numbers on what percentage of people who commit a gun crime do so as their first offense, or first major offense (not counting parking tickets, DUI, urinating in public, etc.)
I dug this up pretty quick: Of 1,662 murders committed in New York City during 2003-2005, more than 90% were committed by people with criminal records.
source
We don't really know if those figures are gun-users though. Considering that more than a third of US murders are non-gun based (same source), there's not much we can really extrapolate from that information. I'd agree generally that data doesn't really help support / deny whether it's effective. All we can really look at is whether the policies themselves are likely to be effective. Perhaps an appropriate gun law is that ownership is legal, provided it's on your own premises? That gives you the ability to fend off would-be robbers, whilst reducing the likelihood that you're going to have a gun at hand if you get angry and lose control while you're out? It certainly reduces the likelihood of a reasonable provocation defense, which would make cases easier to prosecute.
Post by
Rankkor
and so gun laws that you can buy your way around aren't really that effective.
But that's the thing, you can always buy around any restriction if you really want to.
The US made booze illegal once, and they cracked down hard on people selling liquor, did it made the US into a 100% Sober nation? nope, it just made the mafia millionaires by selling booze under the table illegally.
Same principle applies to guns.
out of curiosity Fenomas, on what country do you live on?
Post by
ElhonnaDS
@Rank- I don't think that's so- not in this country at the National level, or the state level. I'm not saying people don't buy they way around trade restrictions, environmental requirements, etc. But gun laws? I don't see that happening here- there's too much media scrutiny and the politicians are too subject to the laws of the state. There's no large segment of the population that benefits from drug-dealers having guns- not like there is for helping various industries or political causes. It wouldn't fly.
In a dictatorship where the politicians are above the law and control the media, that kind of corruption is easier to get away with.
I'm sure that there will be local officials, cops, etc who won't be above it, but on a larger scale it's not worth it.
Post by
Rystrave
The more laws they have against firearms the more problems it will cause, as it is with any other law out there. There are more people who use firearms responsibly versus those who don't, but it's those who don't who ruin it for everyone else which cause these questions to rise.
Unfortunately, it's easy for a dumbass to get a hold of a gun. Not very many places, like little pawn shops and personal collectors, do background checks.
Post by
331902
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Post by
168916
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