Gun Control

Italicized font are quotes from Pro’s last round.Homicide rates encompass all types of murder, not just gun-related, which is what gun control is intended to reduce . I did actually mean to edit that out because it is misleading. The entire point of gun control is to increase our overall safety. The reason the homicide rate is relevant is because my argument is that criminals will still kill with or without guns. I used the same line of reasoning with the mass shootings. Therefore the homicide rates do apply because they show that we are no safer with less guns. Lets look at this from a different angle: There are approximately 11,500 homicides each year by gun. However there are 500,000 to 3,000,000 times each year where guns are used for self-defense. This means guns have potentially saved lives 43 to 260 times more than they have taken lives. This doesn’t even account for the fact that some of the 11,500 deaths were from defensive shootings, which would slide that ratio even further. Developing nations are subject to a number of adverse conditions (war, famine, disease, etc.) that inflate these numbers and make them unfair comparisons to the U.S. This mentality is divisive. It is an “us” vs. “we” arguement. We are so much more progressed than those poor countries so we can’t compare our righteousness to them. What criteria are you using to define this mythical line for gun violence? What about middle income countries like Mexico, Russia, or Uruguay? If you're using the criteria the chart in your reference uses, notice it leaves out Mexico because “of the ongoing drug war”. Well then shouldn’t we take out the United States as well? I guess we don’t have a drug problem here. The W.P. article you cited uses the OECD calculations for developed nations - but conveniently not to include Mexico. The OECD is a highly political organization that is far left leaning. Notice how Israel and Switzerland are not on that list? That is because they actually have a higher gun ownership than the US does, but there gun deaths are drastically lower - therefore our unbiased friends at the W.P. just decided they could be omitted. (http://www.washingtontimes.com...). So let's look at a broader view of what defines a developed nation. How about we use the UN’s human development index (HDI)? The HDI rates economic development and quality of life. Now we have to include countries like Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay, Russia, Belarus, Latvia, The Bahamas, Costa Rica, Panamá, Venezuela, Lithuania, and Estonia, almost all of which have a higher, if not much higher murder rate. Also you have to look at homicide rates without the use of a gun. If you account that around 1 per 100,000 are murdered in Japan, and 3.2 per 100,000 are murdered (without guns) in the U.S. you will see we still have a rate 3 times that of Japan. In other words it’s not the guns, it’s the people. So looking at the people then - knowing you can have vast differences, do those developed nations show promising trends? UK: Firearms used in crimes have doubled in the decade since handguns were banned. Also the UK numbers are misleading because they only report a gun death if the criminal is charged. Australia: After the gun ban and confiscation, robbery with a gun rose 160% the following year. Homicides by gun have risen 19%, armed robberies up 69%, home invasions up 21%. Canada: After significant gun control legislation, Canada’s homicide rate rose to 35% of the U.S. rate (rose, not declined). States with light gun control make up the top 5: Alaska (19.95 gun deaths per 100,000)... This study represents “gun deaths”. This accounts for suicide - about 60% of the deaths actually are suicide. If you factor out suicide, who jumps to the top? D.C. The numbers actually fall apart when you look at gun homicides and not just deaths. D.C. has 12.46 per 100,000 compared to your number 1, Alaska, with a rate of 2.24 per 100,000. (http://www.theguardian.com...) even after adjusting for confounding factors, individuals who were in possession of a gun were about 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession." [5] This study is so ridiculously misleading. It sampled citizens in Philadelphia only, where a gun death resulted from an argument. Criminal (gang) violence perhaps? It does not quantify justifiable firearm use in self defense. It also doesn’t count the number of times a gun was brandished, but everyone walks away - using it as a confrontation to make a criminal leave. So you can throw that stat out the window. In no way does gun control actively disarm law-abiding citizens. In what way do increased background checks disarm law-abiding citizens? I’m actually for increased background checks. Not a registry, and the background checks have to have congress approved criteria otherwise bureaucrats get carried away. (mental disorder = insomnia = Ambien = no gun...get my point?) In what way does prohibiting suspected terrorists, deemed too dangerous to fly, from buying guns disarm law-abiding citizens? These laws would in no way impact law-abiding citizens' right to bear arms aside from merely delaying the process of purchasing a gun by a matter of days. Actually the last bill proposed included 5 years after getting off the list you couldn’t buy. There is no due process to put people on the list. Many people get put on them accidentally with no recourse to get off. This can be used as a political tool, and is completely unconstitutional in that it takes away a constitutional right without due process. Remember that whole innocent before proven guilty thing? Not the other way around. Show me a law where you prove to a judge, how the individual should be on the list with an ability for the accused to defend himself, and I’ll support it. Why should we lay down and not actively try to make it harder for criminals and terrorists to access guns? As stated before, gun laws don’t prevent these things, armed citizens, police, and the government if it ever gets it’s head out of its %$# do. I think most would agree that the mass shooting epidemic going on in the U.S. is unprecedented and unmatched by any other period in its history. France suffered from more people being shot by mass shootings last year than the US has in Obama’s entire presidency. So please show how that correlates to the US and gun control. http://crimeresearch.org... There is absolutely no way Omar Mateen could have gone into Pulse Nightclub with a knife and murder 50 people before being stopped. Show me how to put this man on a list with due process and I will say hell yes. Show how you can take the gun out of his hand and not mine and I will say hell yes. Show me how Omar couldn’t have used a bomb to kill all those people. You aren’t really providing any solutions here. Having the most guns in the world has failed to deal with mass shootings as well. Really? Do you magically know how many mass shootings were neutralized by armed citizens? Remember that 500,000 to 3,000,000 number of gun defenses? Maybe the reason we don’t have more than what we do is because many of them are stopped by people with guns. Your argument it circular. Why still should the 2nd Amendment be immune from any sort of limitations or boundaries? Can we even consider background checks and closing of purchase loopholes to be limitations? Yes - with agreed upon criteria for background checks. If there is a purchase loophole, sure, fix it. Define your “limitations” before we hash into that. Back to you Pro...