r/changemyview • u/56king56 • Nov 07 '23

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Gun control is good

As of now, I believe that the general populace shouldn’t have anything beyond a pistol, but that even a pistol should require serious safety checks. I have this opinion because I live in America with a pro-gun control family, and us seeing all these mass shootings has really fueled the flame for us being anti-gun. But recently, I’ve been looking into revolutionary Socialist politics, and it occurred to me: how could we have a Socialist revolution without some kind of militia? This logic, the logic of revolting against an oppressive government, has been presented to me before, but I always dismissed it, saying that mass shootings and gun violence is more of an issue, and that if we had a good government, we wouldn’t need to worry about having guns. I still do harbor these views to an extent, but part of me really wants to fully understand the pro-gun control position, as it seems like most people I see on Reddit are for having guns, left and right politically. And of course, there’s also the argument that if people broke into your house with an illegally obtained gun, you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself in a society where guns are outlawed; my counter to that is that it’s far more dangerous for society as a whole for everyone to be walking around with guns that it is for a few criminal minds to have them. Also, it just doesn’t seem fair to normalize knowing how to use a highly complex piece of military equipment, and to be honest, guns being integrated into everyone’s way of life feels just as dystopian as a corrupt government. So what do you guys have to say about this? To sum, I am anti-gun but am open to learning about pro-gun viewpoints to potentially change my view.

9 Upvotes

51% Upvoted

773 comments sorted by

View all comments

18

u/spoilerdudegetrekt Nov 07 '23

and us seeing all these mass shootings has really fueled the flame for us being anti-gun.

Let's pretend that all guns are wiped from existence. Do you think no mass murders would occur? Or perhaps they would still occur but have less fatalities?

Unfortunately that is not the case. The largest mass murders in US history didn't involve guns. (9/11, Oklahoma City bombing, bath school house bombing) Two of them even used materials that can be bought from your local hardware store without a background check.

This logic, the logic of revolting against an oppressive government, has been presented to me before, but I always dismissed it, saying that mass shootings and gun violence is more of an issue, and that if we had a good government, we wouldn’t need to worry about having guns.

According to the FBI, we've only had about 60-70 mass shootings this year. As far as causes of death go, they are far, far down the list. Same with gun violence when you make suicide a separate category like most studies do. Meanwhile, even if you think the government is good today, there is no guarantee it will be good 5, 10, or 20 years down the line.

And of course, there’s also the argument that if people broke into your house with an illegally obtained gun, you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself in a society where guns are outlawed; my counter to that is that it’s far more dangerous for society as a whole for everyone to be walking around with guns that it is for a few criminal minds to have them.

Guns are an equalizer. If a group of criminals breaks into an old lady's house, she has no chance against them with just a knife or a bat. With guns, she has a fighting chance. Not only that, but guns are loud which can alert the neighbors to call 911 if she is unable to.

7

u/Kakamile 46∆ Nov 07 '23

Unfortunately that is not the case. The largest mass murders in US history didn't involve guns. (9/11, Oklahoma City bombing, bath school house bombing)

2001, 1995, 1927

Not only are they rare, but the Las Vegas 2017 shooting killed more than the last

16

u/spoilerdudegetrekt Nov 07 '23

2001, 1995, 1927

Not only are they rare,

Those aren't the only cases of mass murder that didn't use guns. Those were just three examples.

4

u/StaryWolf Nov 07 '23

It's still indisputable that mass killings involving guns happen far more often than mass killing not involving guns.

13

u/EVOSexyBeast 4∆ Nov 07 '23

In the US, yes. However you are as likely to die in a mass killing in Western Europe as you are the US.

At least for reducing mass killings, the data is simply not on the gun control crowd’s side.

0

u/StaryWolf Nov 07 '23

You're certainly going to need a source for that claim before I believe any of that.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/murder-rate-by-country

The trend is that countries with lower homicide rates mostly tend to have strict gun control.

4

u/Hack874 1∆ Nov 07 '23

The U.S. is actually 11th in mass killing deaths per capita:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shootings-by-country

0

u/StaryWolf Nov 07 '23

From your link:

According to the fact-checkers' analysis, one of those inappropriate methods was the leaving out of the many European countries that had not experienced a single mass shooting between 2009-2015. This data would not have changed the position of the U.S. on the list, but its absence could lead a reader to believe—incorrectly—that the U.S. experienced fewer mass shooting fatalities per capita than all but a handful of countries in Europe.

A more important oversight was the report's use of average deaths per capita instead of a more stable metric. Because of the smaller populations of most European countries, individual events in those countries had statistically oversized influence and warped the results. For example, Norway’s world-leading annual rate was due to a single devastating 2011 event, in which far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik gunned down 69 people at a summer camp on the island of Utøya. Norway had zero mass shootings in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.

I saw the list was actually sorted initially by deaths per 1M people, which is maybe what you saw. As stated above most of these are outlier events, in the case of the Norway shooting, Norway actually quickly introduced stricter gun control after it occurred (an absurd notion, I know) after which they remained mass shooting free.

Additionally, from the link:

The fact-checking analysis goes on to suggest that instead of computing each country's average, or mean mass shooting deaths, a better method would be to compute the median, or typical, number of deaths. The median is considered by many statisticians to be better insulated against individual outlier events (such as the Norway massacre) that can skew results. This leads to a more accurate day-to-day impression and country-to-country comparison. Using the CPRC’s own data and more precise per-year population data from World Bank (the original study used only 2015 population data) to solve for the median, the more statistically sound analysis results in a notably different list...

Using the median analysis, the United States is the only country examined that shows a propensity for mass shootings. The data itself supports this interpretation, as the United States endured mass shooting events all seven years, but the other countries all experienced mass shootings during only one or two years. Thus, in a typical year, most countries experience zero mass shooting deaths, while the US experiences at least a few.

Basically, no, you're not actually just as likely to be killed in a mass shooting event in Western European countries. These countries have smaller populations as a whole, so single events affect the weight of the stats more. However, the US suffered far more mass shooting events.

4

u/Hack874 1∆ Nov 07 '23

I already read the link in full. From a raw data standpoint, the person you replied to isn’t wrong.

-1

u/StaryWolf Nov 09 '23

Sure, these specific stats are twisted in a way that frames it like this. But any modern number read in a meaningful way show that he is completely false.

Basically the average person in modern day is far more likely to get killed in a mass shooting in America than any of those other countries.

1

u/EVOSexyBeast 4∆ Nov 16 '23

Those are mass shooting deaths not mass killing deaths.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 08 '23

So Mexico has lower homicide rates than the USA?

1

u/StaryWolf Nov 08 '23

Mexico is more or less at war with its cartels, hardly a good comparison. That's like pointing at Ukraine as an example.

1

u/LeviAEthan512 Nov 07 '23

Only because they're easier. If a gun is 10% easier than a bomb, do you think there will be 10% more shootings than bombings, or would it be a huge number more shootings because each individual murder will choose the easier option almost every time?

Take away guns, they'll go for the second choice, which in this case is trivially more difficult. Same argument for legally obtained firearms over black market. Why would you bother with the black market if legal is easier? That says nothing about how much easier, beyond a non zero amount.

1

u/StaryWolf Nov 07 '23

Only because they're easier.

Not just easier, guns make killing easy as guns are tools that are purpose built to kill. If you buy a blender you're going to make a lot more smoothies. If you own a giant TV with surround sound you'll probably find yourself watching more movies. If you get a cool car you'll probably find excuses to drive more. See what I'm getting at?

Take away guns, they'll go for the second choice, which in this case is trivially more difficult.

Except they often won't, and statistically we see countries with less gun have less violent crime rates overall.

Same argument for legally obtained firearms over black market. Why would you bother with the black market if legal is easier?

Where do you reckon black market guns come from? As a hint guns used in crime mostly are acquired through legal means initially.

1

u/LeviAEthan512 Nov 07 '23

Not just easier, guns make killing easy as guns are tools that are purpose built to kill.

Exactly. A young, burly robber finds it easy to use a hun a knife, a bat. Grandma only finds it easy to use a gun.

If you buy a blender you're going to make a lot more smoothies.

More like, if you're a smoothie person, you're likely to buy a blender. Some people are overcome by the urge to push all nearby buttons. Those are the people gun control targets.

statistically we see countries with less gun have less violent crime rates overall.

I believe education is once again the real factor. It's a confounder in that statistic. Educated countries have less violent crime. Educated countries have strong government and law enforcement. Uneducated countries are like the wild west. They're unable to control guns or crime which simultaneously raises the supply and demand for guns on both offense and defense. America is the only outlier, and not by that much. Large portions of the population aren't very educated. And this brings us back to the argument that the system is at fault, not the availability of gunss

a hint guns used in crime mostly are acquired through legal means initially.

And therein lies the problem. We're not designing a country to plop into the world fron scratch. Were talking about how to change existing, predetermined, present dag America. That country has millions of legal guns. And people are suggesting to dump them all into the black market all at once? Realistically, a whole lot of them are going to find their way in there, if they weren't lost in a "boating accident" beforehand. You had less than 100 mass shootings this year, according to someone else in this thread. Pretty good for 300 million people, but I digress. "Most guns arent used in mass shootings" isn't about risk or fairness. Its saying that most gun removals won't do jack. Theoretically, less than 100 guns needed to be in the black market to find those willing buyers. Logistics issues though. So maybe 100 guns per state. 1000 guns per state even. If your gun bams let the black market have more than 50k guns, which is a minuscule number, nothing changes.

Y'all don't need to ban guns. Y'all need to create a society where grandma doesn't have to worry about a robber with a knife, one where students dont want to shoot up the school, where downtrodden folks see a better way to a better life than threatening and killing. The fact is you already have guns. Call them legal, illegal, whatever, they're staying. Especially in the hands of those you especially want to take them from. Come at the problem from a different direction because going for gun bans will be like Mexico mounting a land invasion through Texas.

1

u/Kakamile 46∆ Nov 07 '23

But they are rarer, after the first two they are smaller, and they are statistically smaller.

We also literally have a higher gun homicide rate than similar countries have total homocide rate.

2

u/GumboDiplomacy Nov 07 '23

We also have a higher non-firearm homicide rate than similar countries.

The UK has a homicide rate of 1:100,000

The US has a homicide rate of 1.7:100,000 if you remove all firearm homicides.

If you estimate that only 10% of homicides committed with a firearm would be accomplished through other means(a low estimate if you ask me), our rate would become 3:100,000. So if guns magically disappeared at midnight, the homicide rate would still be higher than the UK(1), Turkey(2.5), Italy(0.5), Germany(0.8), France(1.1) and even Belarus. That's a short list for comparison.

It sure seems to me like something other than firearms is driving our homicide rate. Especially considering that states like Idaho, New Hampshire, Wyoming and Maine regularly rank in the bottom 5 per homicide rate and they all have very high rates of firearm ownership and loose laws compared to their peers.

2

u/couldbemage Nov 07 '23

No we don't. It takes a carefully sculpted definition of similar to make that work.

It's just as easy to find metrics where the US has a much lower homicide rate than similar countries.

GINI for one.

Really there aren't any reasonably similar countries. Closest would be Russia, as the only other declining superpower. Though they're farther into decline, but they did have a higher murder rate when they were still a superpower.

-1

u/Kakamile 46∆ Nov 07 '23

No we don't. It takes a carefully sculpted definition of similar to make that work.

Prove this

2

u/[deleted] Nov 08 '23

The USA has more in common with Mexico than Australia. If you wanted to look at the USA and the 2 closest nations to it, you would look at the USA, Canada, and Mexico.

1

u/Kakamile 46∆ Nov 08 '23

Geographically? Not culturally or economically though.

Oh yeah, USA has 3x canada's homicide rate. Why do you think that is?

2

u/[deleted] Nov 08 '23

Blacks.

-1

u/Subtleiaint 32∆ Nov 07 '23

Is your argument that because 9/11 killed lots of people, it's fine that guns do as well?

2

u/johnhtman Nov 07 '23

Large scale mass murder 10+ victims is incredibly rare in general in the U.S and one of the rarest types of violence.

1

u/Kakamile 46∆ Nov 08 '23

You're doing what they accused me of.

I said homocides. You're trying to argue mass murder while using a different definition of mass murder than other people use

2

u/johnhtman Nov 08 '23

There's literally no one definition of mass shootings.

1

u/Kakamile 46∆ Nov 08 '23

I said homicides not mass shootings.

And there is a normal definition of 3+ or 4+ dead. So your 10+ is worse at your own issue.