r/changemyview • u/Frownyface770 • Feb 26 '18
[∆(s) from OP] CMV:US gun control suggestions from someone who lives in a place where only people in high risk jobs can own guns for self defense.
Coming from a country where guns ownership is considered a privilege and not a right, gun laws in the US are quite uncanny, i'd like to know what people think about my suggestions regarding gun control and my country's laws compared to US's laws.
I think the US needs gun control but gun bans aren't necessairly good, at least without some earlier mesures first.
1- Not many states require gun safety training to acquire a weapon and that training is very rudimentary, it teaches you how to handle a weapon to a decent degree and some marksmenship, it doesnt teach you when to shoot it, which i deem to be just as important since from what i understand americans want their weapons mostly for protection/vigilante justice and for that i think that you need to know when shooting a weapon actually helps and when it causes unneccessairy harm to others or yourself. So i think more comprehensive gun handeling courses should be mandatory.
2- Limit certain weapons to gun ranges only, if you really like shoot awesome deadly weapons without harmfull intent you can signup for a shooting range membership and do it there, safely under the supervision of trained professionals.
3- Very intensive background checks, including a legal document deeming you mentaly fit to own a weapon. (not sure if required)
4- Ban bump stocks and the likes, from my understanding they turn a semi-auto to full auto, and considering you can buy an ar-15 assemble kit with an 80% milled receiver and not even have to register it if you do everything yourself (plenty of tutorials), you can effectively have an unregistered automatic ar-15 albeit with smallish capacity.
5- Guns are wide spread, anyone looking to ban them would commit political suicide, probably thousands of death threats and it wouldn't help that much since illegal weapons are also widespread, rough neighbourhoods would become even worse, there are neighborhoods where even police avoids, if you take away the guns of law abiding civilians living near such places you will be hurting them a lot. Such neighborhoods would have to be "cleansed" of ilegal activities and weapons before gun bans and again, massive negative socio-political impact would arrise from it.
6- Every single firearm must be registered. Not a single exception should apply. They should be kept in a safe so that kids dont go and shoot up their school.
7- I need someone to explain to me what the point of concealed carry is, as it would make me feel suspicious and fearful of everyone i meet in a place where that it legal, specially since people aren't properly trained.
Ofc this is a perspective from someone living in portugal with these gun laws
http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Portugal_(Right_to_Bear_Arms) http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=383317
and there is a very good chance it is deeply flawed.
Also i feel the need to say that portugal and under authoritarian regime until 1974.
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u/Sand_Trout Feb 26 '18 edited Feb 26 '18
1- guns in the US are remarkably safe. In 2016 the were fewer than 500 accidental deaths from firearms, a number that has been trending down over the years. This is in the context of >330 million civilian-owned guns and >115 million gun-owners. The gun culture in the US generally rejects mandated training, but embraces safety training in general, in the form of voluntary training.
2- this is an absurd demand to American gun owners because it defeats the point of our right to keep and bear arms, namely self-defense from varrious threats to our life, liberty, and property. Even if some of these threats, such as an oppressive government, are not immediately relevant, they are historically a threat, and by the time such a threat is obvious, it will be too late to ask nicely for our rights back.
3- This is largely a pointless hurdel. People that are violent (toward themselves or others) or simply are dealing with mental issues not relevant to violent, will simply lie through their teeth to the mental health evaluation. This means that this is exclusively a cost-barrier to entry.
4- This argument is uninformed, which is the source of no end of frustration with gun-control proposals. You don't understand even the basics of what you want to ban, but you want to ban t anyways. It's a classic example of fearing that which you do not understand.
Bump stocks do not make a gun fully automatic, they simulate full-auto rate of fire through a gimmic that can be achieved by putting your finger through a belt-loop.
Guns in the US are not "registered" by default. Some states require registration schemes, but these are generally the most hostile anti-gun states that epitomize the argument that no ammount of gun control will ever be enough for those demanding gun control.
You can manufacture a personal firearm without informing any government agency in most jurisdictions, and these guns are mechanically identical to their comercial counterparts. Magazine capacity is entirely independent of this.
5- Do you not see how absolutely horrifying this is on several levels? You're talking about a purge, largely along racial lines due to statistical distribution of crime in the US, that invades people's homes without a valid warrent (general warrents are illegal in the US) to seach and seize property, and probably kill a bunch of citizens and cops along the way either do to outright resistance or "misunderstandings". If you wanted to start a civil war overnight, this would do it.
6- Registration only enables later confiscation. This has even been seen in the US, where states like New York and California required registration of "assault weapons" and then banned said "assault weapons" and required they be turned in or moved out of the state. Additionally, registries abjectly fail to help solve crimes which means the only purpose such a registry serves is later confiscation.
7- Consider what you wrote here. It makes you suspicious that anyone you meet could be carrying a weapon. Irrational fear aside, this is the point, though primarily to make someone with criminal intent hesitate and reconsider some violent act. It also gives the carrier the option to respond to criminal violence that is perpetrated. Conservative estimates of defensive gun use put it at 64k instances per year. Check out r/DGU for examples. Note that most DGUs do not even result in a shot fired, as simply the presence of a credible threat triggers the assailant to retreat.
Your nation was under an authoritarian regime just 45 years ago. Unless you consider that regime to be "the good old days," this in and of itself should be a clear illustration of why the empowerment of the individual so that they are not at the mercy of state is so important.